Wednesday, September 12, 2012

The divine intellect


A reader asks:

[I] was curious, given your work in philosophy of mind, what you would say is the most plausible notion we have of God's mental content… [T]he popular theories (functionalism, phenomenology, holism, etc) all seem to violate the doctrine of divine simplicity… I have a hard time conceiving of any conception of minds on which the mind is not, in some sense of the word, modular, or complex.  Minds have got to have thoughts at the very least on the most basic, primitivist conceptions, and that seems to require that minds have parts.

A fair question.  Suppose we said (as a contemporary functionalist philosopher of mind might) that a mind is a system of states -- beliefs, desires, perceptual experiences, sensations, etc. -- constituted by their causal relations to each other and to inputs to and outputs from the system.  Such a system (so the idea goes) might be embodied in the neural structure of the brain, or in the circuitry of a computer, or in the eccentric physiology of an extraterrestrial.  Or (the functionalist continues) it might in principle even be instantiated in the states of an immaterial substance, even though (the functionalist will go on to insist) the supposition that there are such substances violates Ockham’s razor.  (To be sure, this is inept, because it assumes that when Cartesians and others speak of “immaterial substances” they mean objects that are like material objects in having myriad parts, only parts that are immaterial rather than material.  But in fact it is central to the notion of an immaterial substance that it is simple in the sense of non-composite, and doesn’t have any “parts” that might “causally interact.”  Anyway, that is how functionalists -- who don’t always have an accurate understanding of what non-materialists actually think -- sometimes argue that their position is compatible with the view that minds are immaterial.)

Now, if we took this sort of view, then it might naturally seem that to attribute mind to God is to assert that He has “mental states” causally interrelated in something like the ways functionalists describe -- that He is a kind of “eternal brain,” only made out of a gigantic blob of ectoplasm (I guess) rather than neurons, silicon chips, or the like.  Naturally, it is hard to see how this could be squared with the classical theist’s core doctrine of divine simplicity.  But of course, for a classical theist -- and certainly for an Aristotelian-Thomistic (A-T) philosopher -- this whole way of characterizing mind in general and the divine mind in particular is completely wrongheaded.  There are a number of points to be made in explaining why.

First, when the classical theist attributes mind to God, he is not attributing to God everything that contemporary philosophers of mind place under the “mental” category and seek to explain in terms of theories like the ones to which the reader alludes (functionalism, etc.).  In particular, the classical theist is not attributing to God qualia (such as the color qualia we have when we see red and green objects, the qualia associated with feeling hot or cold objects, etc.), or mental images, or the like.  These are (certainly according to Thomists and other Aristotelians) all of a corporeal or bodily nature, and God is incorporeal.  What the classical theist does attribute to God is intellect and the knowledge that goes along with intellect, as well as will.  

Second, at least for Thomists, when attributing intellect, knowledge, etc. both to God and to us, we have to understand the relevant terms analogously rather than univocally.  It’s not that God has knowledge in just the sense we do, only more of it.  It’s rather that there is in God something analogous to what we call knowledge in us, even if (since He is absolutely simple, eternal, etc.) it cannot be the same thing we have.  

Third, for these reasons we have to be especially careful not to fall into the trap of trying to imagine God’s attributes – in this case, to try to imagine “what it’s like” to be God.  There’s nothing it’s “like” to be God if we mean by that a certain kind of stream of thoughts and conscious experiences, like ours but (say) more vivid and encompassing a perceptual awareness of every part of the world at once.  That’s a completely wrongheaded way of conceptualizing the divine, because it at least implicitly involves attributing changeability to God (such as the transition from one thought or experience to another).  Here as elsewhere we cannot properly understand metaphysical ideas unless we stop trying to visualize the realities to which they refer.  To grasp the divine intellect (to the extent that we can grasp it) we have to use our intellects, not our senses or our imaginations.

Fourth, while one might be tempted to conclude from these first three points that God’s intellect and knowledge must be decidedly sub-personal compared to ours, that is precisely the reverse of the truth.  To see how, compare the example of divine power.  When the classical theist says that God has power, what is meant is not that God has what a mere creature has or might be imagined to have – large muscles, political influence, rhetorical skill, or even telekinesis – only more of it.  What is meant is rather that there is in God something analogous to what we call power in us, though it cannot be the same thing since God is immaterial, incorporeal, absolutely simple, etc. 

Now this does not entail that God is less than powerful in the sense of “power” we have in mind when we speak of human power.  Rather it entails that He is unimaginably more than powerful in that sense.  For instance, what has “power” in the ordinary sense has the capacity merely to alter preexisting materials in various ways – to mold clay, or lift a heavy box, or cause an earthquake, or split an atom, or what have you.  But divine power is not limited to altering things.  In causing the world, for instance, God does not alter or modify preexisting materials after the fashion of a human artisan; rather, He creates it ex nihilo.  He does not make an X by taking some existing matter and imparting a new form to it, but rather makes it the case that the whole thing -- the matter and form of X together -- exists at all.  God is not like a human watchmaker, only cleverer and more skillful -- not because His causality is less than the sort represented by watchmaking, but because it is more than that.  Watchmaking is simply too trivial a sort of thing to model worldmaking on.  

Similarly, to say that it is a mistake to try to grasp the divine intellect by modeling it on our thought processes does not entail that God is less than “personal” in the sense that we are personal (as contrasted with impersonal objects and forces like stones and gravity).  Rather, God is more than personal, in that everyday sense of “personal.” His intellect is not inferior to our conscious thought processes (as a stone, gravity, or even the unconscious informational states of a computer are to that extent inferior to our conscious states) but on the contrary beyond and higher than them, just as divine power is beyond and higher than the relatively trivial capacities in created things that we characterize as “powers.”  “My thoughts are not your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8).

Fifth, we need to understand what intellect is in the first place, and at least for the A-T tradition, it is, even in the case of human beings, not the sort of thing contemporary philosophers of mind typically have in mind when they talk about “beliefs” and other “representational states.”  Modern philosophers often conceptualize the mind in a kind of doubly bastardized Cartesian way.  In effect they start with Descartes’ notion of the mind as a kind of substance in its own right rather than a power of a complete substance (that’s their first mistake).  Then they rework Descartes’ conception in a Humean direction by supposing that this purported substance is really a kind of accidental collection comprised of a number of distinct “representations” modeled on images, or sentences, or symbols of some other sort (second mistake).  Finally, they suppose that these “representations” are as inherently devoid of content as material symbols in general are, and must therefore somehow derive whatever content they have from their relations (whether causal relations, relations of resemblance, or what have you) to something else (third mistake).

Now this is in my view just one more chapter in the long history of compounded errors that constitutes modern, post-Cartesian philosophy, and which I have discussed in detail in The Last Superstition.  But whether you agree with that assessment or not, the conception of mind in question is one that the A-T philosopher rejects.  

Aquinas’s account of what it is to have intellect is summarized in a passage in which he explains why we must attribute knowledge to God:
In God there exists the most perfect knowledge.  To prove this, we must note that intelligent beings are distinguished from non-intelligent beings in that the latter possess only their own form; whereas the intelligent being is naturally adapted to have also the form of some other thing; for the idea of the thing known is in the knower.  Hence it is manifest that the nature of a non-intelligent being is more contracted and limited; whereas the nature of intelligent beings has a greater amplitude and extension; therefore the Philosopher says (De Anima iii) that “the soul is in a sense all things.”  Now the contraction of the form comes from the matter.  Hence, as we have said above (Question 7, Article 1) forms according as they are the more immaterial, approach more nearly to a kind of infinity.  Therefore it is clear that the immateriality of a thing is the reason why it is cognitive; and according to the mode of immateriality is the mode of knowledge.  Hence it is said in De Anima ii that plants do not know, because they are wholly material.  But sense is cognitive because it can receive images free from matter, and the intellect is still further cognitive, because it is more separated from matter and unmixed, as said in De Anima iii.  Since therefore God is in the highest degree of immateriality as stated above (Question 7, Article 1), it follows that He occupies the highest place in knowledge. (Summa Theologiae I.14.1)

For Aquinas, then, what makes you intelligent and a stone non-intelligent is that you can have both your own form and the stone’s form -- as you do when you grasp what a stone is -- whereas the stone can have only its own form.  You possess the form of a stone “intentionally” -- in the intellect -- rather than “entitatively” -- that is to say, without being a stone.  In a looser sense, though, the soul “is” all things precisely insofar as it can have the forms of all things at least “intentionally” or in the intellect.  This is one reason why intellect cannot be material.  Material things can possess only one substantial form at a time.  Hence for a parcel of matter to posses the substantial form of a tree (for example) is just for it to be a tree, and for that same parcel to come to possess the substantial form of ashes is just for it to lose the substantial form of a tree and become ashes.  But the intellect can possess multiple substantial forms -- “intentionally” -- at the same time, and without ceasing to be an intellect.  (This sense of “intentionally” is the source of the modern technical philosophical term “intentionality.”)  

Indeed, as the passage quoted indicates, for Aquinas the further from matter a thing is the more intelligent it is, so that God -- as pure actuality and thus maximally devoid of the potentiality that is characteristic of matter -- is supreme in intellect.  Consider also the Scholastic principle of proportionate causality (which I have discussed and defended in Aquinas), according to which whatever is in an effect must in some way be in its total cause (whether “formally,” “virtually,” or “eminently”).  Now God is the sustaining cause of the world, that which keeps all things in existence from moment to moment.  The forms of all things -- that which makes them what they are -- must therefore exist in Him, not in an “entitative” way (since He is not a material thing nor in any other way limited) but rather in something analogous to the way in which forms exist “intentionally” in our intellects.  (Cf. ST I.15.1)

To be sure, given divine simplicity, they cannot exist in Him in exactly the way forms exist in our intellects.  But how, then, are we to understand the ideas in the divine intellect?  For A-T, anything other than God that exists or might exist is an imitation of God.  In creation, that which is unlimited and perfect in God comes to exist in a limited and imperfect way in the natural order.  (Recall the doctrine of divine simplicity, as Thomists understand it: Attributes that are distinct in us are analogous to what in God is one.)  The divine ideas according to which God creates are therefore to be understood as the divine intellect’s grasp of the diverse ways in which the divine essence -- which is one, unlimited, and perfect -- might be imitated in a limited and imperfect fashion by created things.  Aquinas writes:

Now, it is not repugnant to the simplicity of the divine mind that it understand many things; though it would be repugnant to its simplicity were His understanding to be formed by a plurality of images.  Hence many ideas exist in the divine mind, as things understood by it; as can be proved thus.  Inasmuch as He knows His own essence perfectly, He knows it according to every mode in which it can be known.  Now it can be known not only as it is in itself, but as it can be participated in by creatures according to some degree of likeness.  But every creature has its own proper species, according to which it participates in some degree in likeness to the divine essence.  So far, therefore, as God knows His essence as capable of such imitation by any creature, He knows it as the particular type and idea of that creature; and in like manner as regards other creatures.  So it is clear that God understands many particular types of things and these are many ideas. (ST I.15.2)

Again, the conception of the divine intellect that the doctrine of divine simplicity entails does not imply that what we call “intellect” in God is inferior to our intellects (as dogs, plants, and stones are each inferior to us cognitively speaking) but rather that it is superior.  What exists in a metaphysically simple or non-composite way in God is not sub-intellectual; on the contrary, it is “Intelligence Itself,” in which our puny intellects merely participate.  (I have discussed the manner in which ideas exist in the divine intellect in an earlier post.)

Naturally, someone who is unsympathetic to the A-T approach to these issues is bound to reject many or all of the metaphysical assumptions underlying these various points.  Obviously a blog post isn’t the place to settle all that.  But we see, here as elsewhere, that you have not understood classical and Scholastic philosophy in general and A-T in particular until you see how radically they differ from modern philosophy across the board.  The errors of the moderns (as we philosophical reactionaries see things) are not just errors in philosophy of religion and metaphysics, but in epistemology, philosophy of mind, and pretty much everything else, and the errors are all deeply interrelated.

501 comments:

  1. Rank:

    Made explicit in the mind, which is not an ontological change. The appearance of redness through a prism is an ontological change, whereas our grasp of redness's pre-existence in whiteness is not an ontological change, even though it becomes explicit in our minds.

    Okay, help me out here. There are three scenarios here:

    (1) You have actual white light, which actually contains pre-existent and virtual redness in an implicit fashion
    (2) You have (1) plus the white light passing through a prism which causes the red light to be separated from the white light
    (3) You have (2) plus the red light is attended to by an intellect

    When does the red light become explicit? In (2) or (3)?

    Also, does white light actually contain pre-existent and virtual redness, or does white light contain actual redness, or does white light actually contain actual redness?

    Actually existent as a logical being. But logical beings do not exist. I don't see the contradiction.

    Help me out here. How can something actually exist as a logical being but not actually exist?

    That it is always present to God's intellect does not changes its ontological status. Otherwise, God would necessarily create all things simply by knowing them, which is incoherent and impossible.

    It seems that a virtual distinction becomes explicit after it becomes known by an intellect, but it does not follow that the virtual X is an real X.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Glenn:

    The former? That once a commonality is identified, the chain of meaning stops for the reason that the claim that there is a commonality has been substantitated and verified?

    True.

    Or the latter? That once a commonality is identified, one should reject it through refinement, and keep going until any and all commonality has been rejected--at which point it then can be asserted that the original claim that there is a commonality has been disproved?

    No. Once a commonality has been identified, the chain stops, but if you keep adding details, none of which are the commonality, and you have added all the details you can think of, none of which is the commonality, then you can infer that there is no commonality. Your quote was:

    “Your argument seems to boil down to the fact that you can keep doing this until any and all commonality has been rejected, at which point, or so you claim, the original claim that there is a commonality has been disproved.”

    By “this” in your quote, I thought you were referring to my process of adding details to each set of sentences, as I was doing on September 17, 2012 12:42 PM. Doing so without ever reaching the commonality is sufficient demonstration of an absence of commonality. That’s all I meant.

    So, no contradiction here. Just a bit of misinterpretation.

    Your (1**) translated back into natural language: "What is said of X and Y may be said in a purely univocal sense if and only if X and Y are the same thing."

    Not just that they are the same thing, but that they are perceived by the mind in the same way. It would be like two people looking at Venus from the same vantage point. They would not only be looking at the same thing, but in the same way. That is why you have to include sense as well as referent in your explanation of univocality. It is not enough just to say that X and Y are the same thing, because that condition also holds in analogy. They have to be the same thing understood in the same way.

    It may be that your (1**) clarifies what you want to say, but it clearly changes, rather than clarifies, (1).

    What I said was the same as what Aquinas wrote. Prove otherwise.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Glenn:

    Your argument, with respect to God and creatures (@September 17, 2012 12:26 PM, e.g.), does not share Aquinas' neutrality, and is demanding of an ontological identicalness rather than accepting of an ontological imitation.

    First, Aquinas’ neutrality is not complete, because his account of analogy also includes the fact that the terms are referring to some one thing, and thus it is not exclusively in the realm of meaning alone.

    Second, the precise issue is whether you can have imitation without identity. My argument is that imitation implies similarity, and similarity implies partial identity and partial difference. I’ve even offered pretty clear definitions of what I mean by “identity”, “similarity” and “difference” above, which I will repeat here:

    (1) X is identical to Y iff X and Y share everything in common

    (2) X is similar to Y (= X is like Y = X imitates Y) iff X and Y share something in common

    (3) X is different from Y iff X and Y share nothing in common

    Let me know exactly what in my definitions is incorrect or unfaithful to Aquinas.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Mr. Green:

    So perhaps we can think of analogies involving God as being "almost" like univocality, but not quite. Also note that we can have different curves that approach the same line, for example one on this side and one on that side — just as we can apply different attributes to God even though (in Him) they must all be the same thing. Loosely speaking, they would all "meet at infinity", but since we of course cannot stuff an infinite essence into our intellects, we must "approach" it from various angles.

    You’ve mentioned this analogy for analogy before, and I’ve always found it intuitively pleasing, but ultimately wanting, because in your analogy, you can see both the lines at once. You can see the curved line inching ever so closely to the second line, but never meeting. You can even measure the distance between the two to get a sense of just how far apart they are. However, none of this applies when you have an analogy between God and creation. You are on the curved line, and can feel it bending, but you have no sense of how close or how far away you are from your target. In fact, you are infinitely far away at any time, and thus never really get close at all.

    A better analogy would be a game of marco polo in which you never actually catch the person. You are blindfolded, and have to rely upon your hearing. You hear someone call out “marco polo” from a vague direction, and so you start to approach towards that direction. You then hear someone call out “marco polo” from another direction, and so you head in that direction. And you continue in this vein forever, never getting close enough to the person calling out “marco polo” to actually catch them. If winning the game requires you catching that person, then can you really say that you still win the game even though you never catch the person?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Josh:

    1st one makes sense, 2nd one doesn't. The 2nd one is like saying "a man is a nose."

    The funny thing was that that was going to be my response, but I assumed that you meant something else entirely by the sentence. Anyway, should have followed my gut.

    One is abstraction without precision, the other is with precision. And anything predicable in our analogies is according to the first, e.g., pizza is good, books are good; not pizza is goodness, books are goodness. And the point about the first type of abstraction is that it "carries along" the senses that differ, which goes into my next response.

    Perhaps it would be better if we just ignored the names altogether, to have:

    (1) X is good = X maximally actualizes X’s potentialities


    (2) X is goodness = X is the ultimate standard that all good things are trying imitate when actualizing their potentialities by virtue of X’s infinite and complete actualization such that there is no residual potentiality

    If (1) makes sense, but (2) doesn’t make sense, then what exactly is the problem. If you want to say that (1) is abstraction without precision, and (2) is abstraction with precision, then what exactly is precise in (2) that is less precise in (1)?

    It's almost like you want to "nest" another R inside the S

    Not necessarily. You can have the same R, but you are approaching it from a different perspective (i.e. S). In other words, it would be the same R, but understood in different ways (i.e. S’s).

    I'm committed to the view that the senses in each analogate are different, not similar.

    Then it would necessarily follow that X(S) and Y(S) have nothing in common. Can you think of any examples where this is the case?

    It is the R identity which grounds the commonality, in my opinion, and the different S that makes it analogy and not univocity.

    That is correct, but I think that you miss the fact that the different S’s have some things in common between them. Even the Morning Star and the Evening Star had some things in common between them, such as they were both large illuminated bodies in the sky that were observable on earth. It is not as if the sense of “Morning Star” and the sense of “Evening Star” had nothing in common between them. In fact, it seems pretty clear that they were similar to one another, and not utterly different.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Josh:

    I think we both agree on the R being common...what are the senses (S) in each case? A triangle does its R in a completely different way than does a man, right? You have a hard time seeing how the S is completely different, I have a hard time seeing how they'd be partially the same and different in that case...

    The sense of both is explained in (1) above:

    (1) X is good = X maximally actualizes X’s potentialities

    That is what they have in common. What they differ about is what their potentialities include. Man includes the potentiality to exercise intellect to identify the good and will to pursue the good, which is absent in triangles. So, you could write them as follows:

    (2) Man is good = (a) man maximally actualizes his potentialities (b) to exercise his intellect to identify the good and his will to pursue the good
    (3) Triangle is good = (c) triangle maximally actualizes its potentialities (d) to be a perfectly straight three sided figure with its internal angles adding up to exactly 180 degrees

    So, the partial sameness is in the “maximally actualizes its potentialities” part in (a) and (c), and the partial difference is in the kind of potentialities involved in (b) and (d).

    That is to say, how can you express the partial sameness in the S without referring to R? Because we already agree that's the same, it seems like you are pointing to something else besides R that is the same, and so it can't contain that.

    I don’t have to. Whenever I use S I am referring to R, much like whatever view I take of Venus, whether from the perspective in which it appears as the Morning Star or the perspective in which it appears as the Evening Star, the different perspectives (or senses) always refer to the same planet (or referent).

    ReplyDelete
  7. Dguller,

    Not necessarily. You can have the same R, but you are approaching it from a different perspective (i.e. S). In other words, it would be the same R, but understood in different ways (i.e. S’s).

    Perhaps I'd amend my earlier post to say it's logically possible to have senses that are either different or partially the same and partially different, and still have analogy by virtue of them referring to the same thing or R. More below.

    Then it would necessarily follow that X(S) and Y(S) have nothing in common. Can you think of any examples where this is the case?

    Why would it follow that two different perspectives on the same object, or two differing ways of realizing the same thing have nothing in common? They're both pointing to the same thing.

    That is what they have in common. What they differ about is what their potentialities include. Man includes the potentiality to exercise intellect to identify the good and will to pursue the good, which is absent in triangles. So, you could write them as follows:

    (2) Man is good = (a) man maximally actualizes his potentialities (b) to exercise his intellect to identify the good and his will to pursue the good
    (3) Triangle is good = (c) triangle maximally actualizes its potentialities (d) to be a perfectly straight three sided figure with its internal angles adding up to exactly 180 degrees


    And I'm saying the S just is "what their potentialities include" and it is the R of Good, or "maximally actualizing its potentialities" that grounds the analogy.

    It seems that all you did was reiterate the R in the "partial sameness" of the S so that you could say that the S was partially the same and partially different.

    To me, the identity relationship you require is in the two beings referring to one thing in different ways. That in and of itself satisfies the necessary condition of commonality. Whether those ways are wholly different or partially the same/different I guess depends on the things at stake, but the only second necessary condition is that there is some different sense in each analogate referring to R that the analogy is predicated on.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Dguller et al.,

    I'm operating on Kreeft's definition of analogical from Summa of the Summa (which isn't notably different from Dguller's):

    "the relationship between two things or terms which are partly the same and partly different, neither univocal (wholly the same) nor equivocal (wholly different); the relationship of similarity but not identity between the meaning of a term when predicated of one subject (e.g., milk is good) and the meaning of that term when predicated of another subject (e.g., God is good)"

    Which is why I've tried to focus on Dguller's notion of univocality and how it relates to the concrete meaning of a term.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Say you have fire that virtually contains burning trees, burning leaves and burning paper, and you have fire* that virtually contains burning trees and burning leaves, but does not virtually contain burning paper. Clearly fire and fire* are different, because fire can burn something that fire* cannot. Doesn’t it follow that the nature of fire and fire* are determined by what virtual distinctions they possess? After all, one different virtual distinction and you have a totally different thing.

    This isn't how Aquinas's metaphysics work. There has to be a maximum--there can't be a "fire" and a "fire*" unless one is couched in the other.

    First, couldn’t you say that when a mind considers self-evident principles, then the mind actualizes the potential conclusions within it?

    Something cannot be in potential unless it pre-exists in actuality. Here's an argument Aquinas has with himself on learning.

    Obj. 5 If the knowledge is caused by one person in another, the learner either had it already or he did not. If he did not have it already and it was caused in him by another, then one man creates knowledge in another, which is impossible. However, if he had it already, it was present either in complete actuality, and thus it cannot be caused, for what already exists does not come into being, or it was present seminally (secundum rationes seminales). But such seminal principles cannot be actualized by any created power, but are implanted in nature by God alone, as Augustine says. So, it remains true that one man can in no way teach another.

    Reply 5 In one who is taught, the knowledge did not exist in complete actuality, but, as it were, in seminal principles, in the sense that the universal concepts which we know naturally are, as it were, the seeds of all the knowledge which follows. But, although these seminal principles are not developed to actuality by any created power, as though they were infused by a created power, that which they have in a primitive way and virtually can develop into actuality by means of the activity of a created power.

    Second, are you saying that within the principle of non-contradiction, there actually exist in a virtual fashion every single possible conclusion? Furthermore, are you saying that within fire there actually exists every thing on fire?

    I think I'd say that about the three axioms in total, except in the case of divine revelation, which Aquinas says cannot be learned or taught. And, yes; everything on fire, or "fiery", is virtually within fire itself.

    Third, if we can now use concepts, such as “quasi-actually”, then why not also call potentiality “quasi-actual”? After all, for a being to have a potentiality to do X, it must actually have that actual potentiality, and that potentiality is directed towards some possible actuality.

    Potentials rely on virtual distinctions for their existence; otherwise, the principle of proportionate causality would not hold. See the above discussion on learning.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Fourth, even G-L writes: “a virtual distinction, even a minor virtual distinction, since each attribute contains all others actually, but not explicitly, only implicitly, while genus contains its species, in no wise actually, but only potentially, virtually.” (http://www.ewtn.com/library/theology/reality.htm) It seems that even G-L conflates “potentially” and “virtually” as being fundamentally related somehow.

    Aquinas uses the term "potency" to refer to virtual composition from time to time, but they clearly do not mean the same things. Virtuality is prior to potentiality, because something cannot be potential unless it already pre-exists, in some fashion, within the efficient cause.

    The question is which is parasitic upon which. You seem to argue that the pre-existent a virtual forms within the unified actual form F is the origin of the potentiality of the being that actually has F. My position is that neither is parasitic upon the other, but rather each refers to the same thing in different ways, i.e. they are different ways for us to talk about possibility, or what could be the case. The possibility that Z can occur must, in some sense, exist in the nature of the thing that could do Z.

    If your position is true, then Aquinas, Garrigou-Lagrange and others would be arguing from tautologies. Remember:

    1. For a cause to cause an effect, the effect must pre-exist in some way within the cause.
    2. The effect pre-exists virtually within the cause.
    3. To pre-exist virtually is to have a potential to cause the effect.

    But this, again, boils down to the cause being able to cause the effect just because, and it never gets around to explaining anything. "The cause can cause the effect because the cause can cause the effect." It simply must be a false interpretation.

    Similarly, the virtual possession of F could be construed as a primary actuality that has not yet been secondarily actualized, and in which this secondary actualization remain in potentiality. So, maybe we are both kind of saying the same thing here.

    This is fairly close, I think. Maybe not dead-on, but you're getting there.

    First, an efficient cause is an actual thing that causes the transition from potentiality to actuality in another thing. If the white light is the efficient cause, then it must be the actual agent of change from potentiality to actuality. What is going from potentiality to actuality?

    Redness, which potentially existed beforehand because it virtually pre-existed in whiteness. Remember, an efficient cause cannot give what it does not in some way have. The prism does not contain redness in any way. Therefore, it cannot be the efficient cause of redness.

    Second, how can the prism be the material cause? The material cause is what something is made of. Is the red light made of the prism?

    In a rough sense, I'd say yes. For redness to be created, in this situation, it needs the efficient cause to actualize a material cause. Since the prism cannot be the efficient cause, it must be the material cause--it clearly is not the formal or the final cause.

    . For example, you say that “Garrigou-Lagrange states that the Trinity is a virtual distinction”, and yet G-L writes that “in God the only real distinction is that of the divine persons relatively opposed one to another” (http://www.ewtn.com/library/theology/reality.htm), which seems to contradict what you are saying.

    I was going by the earlier link. Again, I know nothing about the Trinity, and I don't pretend otherwise.

    ReplyDelete


  11. However, what does it mean to say that essence and existence is a real distinction? It is certainly not the case that you can have essence without existence.

    Actually, it is. That was Aquinas's main argument for the distinction between essence and existence: his ability to contemplate the essences of non-existent entities. Oderberg makes similar arguments in Real Essentialism.

    In other words, it must have a kind of being, either as conjoined to an essence into an ens, or within an existing intellect.

    It has a kind of being, but this should not be conflated with esse. As a logical being, it relies on the existence of a "host", even though it does not possess existence itself. Likewise, God, who is pure existence, knows all essences; but he is not obliged to join any of them with acts of existence. In all cases, essence is supervenient on existence.

    Finally, if you want to say that a virtual distinction is an actual distinction but not a real distinction, then you need to clarify what you mean by “actual” and “real” in this context. I mean, how can something that is not real have a “basis in real-ity”?

    If a virtual distinction was a real distinction, then it would involve ontological composition in the subject. If it was a purely logical distinction, then it would have no bearing on anything. To say that a distinction is virtual is to say that something without ontological composition (in some regard) can be said to contain its effects, because they are contained "virtually" within the cause's uncomposed actuality. The pre-existence of conclusions in first principles is a good example. The first principles do not actually (i.e. "absolutely") contain all conclusions, for then their descriptions would be infinitely long; but, because they are the first principles, all conclusions pre-exist within them, which is why those conclusions can exist potentially outside of them.

    It's kind of a difficult concept to get across.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Okay, help me out here. There are three scenarios here:

    (1) You have actual white light, which actually contains pre-existent and virtual redness in an implicit fashion
    (2) You have (1) plus the white light passing through a prism which causes the red light to be separated from the white light
    (3) You have (2) plus the red light is attended to by an intellect

    When does the red light become explicit? In (2) or (3)?


    Depends on your definition of "explicit", here. If you mean "actually real", then (2). If you mean "logically real", then it would be in some step (1a), in which the intellect comprehended the pre-existent redness before it was brought into existence. (3) is merely a recognition of something actually real, and so the virtual distinction does not apply to the actual redness itself. For (3) to be a virtual distinction, the mind would have to ignore the actual redness and consider the pre-existent redness within whiteness.

    Also, does white light actually contain pre-existent and virtual redness, or does white light contain actual redness, or does white light actually contain actual redness?

    White light actually contains virtual redness. This is because white light is the "highest light", so to speak, and so it contains all colors virtually because it is a "purely actual light".

    Help me out here. How can something actually exist as a logical being but not actually exist?

    For something to actually exist, it must be ontologically real. Logical beings--privations, for instance--are not ontologically real. If privations were ontologically real, then it would follow that non-being was ontologically real, which is a contradiction.

    The mind can understand privation in terms of positive logical constructs, such as "sin". This does not enact an ontological change. Similarly, the mind can understand things that do not exist, such as the essence of a phoenix. The mind can also understand actually non-composite things compositely, which is to say virtually.

    It seems that a virtual distinction becomes explicit after it becomes known by an intellect, but it does not follow that the virtual X is an real X.

    Exactly. However, although it does not follow that the virtual X is a real X, the virtual X must be based on an actually real X. Otherwise, it would be a purely logical distinction, such as our understanding of sin.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Would an example of analogical predication clarify things?

    Consider "Joe is strong" vs. "the horse is strong". Those two statements are univocal uses of "strong"; both assert that something is able to exert a great deal of force. Contrast those with "the liquor is strong": does that assert that the liquor can exert a great deal of force? Obviously not; liquor, as a chemical mixture, can't exert any force at all. Liquor is "strong" when it has a high concentration of alcohol in it. So "Joe is strong" and "the liquor is strong" aren't univocal uses of "strong".

    But we can't say that those two uses are equivocal either. It's not like how the word "bat" can mean either a nocturnal flying mammal or a piece of equipment used to play baseball, where the two meanings are not related at all. The meaning of "strong" as applied to chemicals does have a relation to the word's meaning as applied to animals; that is, the uses are analogous.

    Also, does white light actually contain pre-existent and virtual redness, or does white light contain actual redness, or does white light actually contain actual redness?

    I don't think light going through a prism is a good example for explaining why "virtual" and "potential" aren't the same; physically speaking, "white" light is really a mixture of lights of many colors, and all the prism does is separate the mixture into its components.

    A better example is a chemical molecule, say water. One molecule of water is composed of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen; so those three atoms are virtually in the molecule. They aren't potentially in the molecule - if they were, the molecule wouldn't be composed of them. Contrariwise, molecules of hydrogen and oxygen are potentially present in a quantity of water, in that they don't exist yet but could exist if an electrical current passed through the collection.

    To be quite clear, composition is only a simple example of virtual existences - there are other kinds as well.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Michael,

    Hope you don't mind if I appropriate this for my thread of discussion for Dguller and others:

    Consider "Joe is strong" vs. "the horse is strong". Those two statements are univocal uses of "strong"; both assert that something is able to exert a great deal of force.

    I'd say this can be univocal or analogical, depending on whether the sense or S is predicated on the sameness or difference found in it. If the R is exerts force, and the S(man) is "of will," and S(horse) is "of physicality," then you have analogical predication. If they are both on the level of physicality in their S, then you have univocal predication.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Josh:

    Perhaps I'd amend my earlier post to say it's logically possible to have senses that are either different or partially the same and partially different, and still have analogy by virtue of them referring to the same thing or R.

    That’s fine, except that I don’t think it’s possible for you to find a situation in which you have two completely different senses for the same referent. Perhaps you can provide an example? And if you cannot, then it seems that analogy requires similarity between senses and identity with referents.

    Why would it follow that two different perspectives on the same object, or two differing ways of realizing the same thing have nothing in common? They're both pointing to the same thing.

    Sorry, I’m operating according to my definition of “different” such that X and Y are different iff X and Y have nothing in common. And you seem to have agreed with me in that it seems impossible for two different ways of realizing the same thing to have absolutely nothing in common, which means that they are similar.

    And I'm saying the S just is "what their potentialities include" and it is the R of Good, or "maximally actualizing its potentialities" that grounds the analogy.

    I think that we agree that R in (1) and (2) is the good, but we differ in what counts as the sense in (1) and (2). I think that the sense in (1) is (a) and (b) and the sense in (2) is (c) and (d). That is because what we mean by the good in (1) and (2) cannot be totally identical or totally different, but rather must be partly identical and partly different. I think that my construal is the best way of accounting for the partial identity and partial difference within the senses themselves. Under my construal, (a) is identical to (c), which is the partial identity, and (b) is different from (d), which is the partial difference.

    I don’t think that your account does that as well.

    It seems that all you did was reiterate the R in the "partial sameness" of the S so that you could say that the S was partially the same and partially different.

    First, that’s because part of the partial identity is the same R in the X(S) and Y(S).

    Second, you can say that X(S) and Y(S) are either identical, similar or different. If they are identical, then you have univocality. If they are different, then they have nothing in common, which I think is impossible. That only leaves similarity, which means that they are partially identical and partially different. I take that to mean that X(S) and Y(S) are partly the same and partly different in and of themselves, independent of their sharing the same R.

    To me, the identity relationship you require is in the two beings referring to one thing in different ways. That in and of itself satisfies the necessary condition of commonality.

    That is one essential condition, yes.

    Whether those ways are wholly different or partially the same/different I guess depends on the things at stake, but the only second necessary condition is that there is some different sense in each analogate referring to R that the analogy is predicated on.

    Like I said, I think that it is impossible for there to be totally different senses that share the same referent, but I’m open to the possibility that I’m wrong, if you can provide an example of this. However, if you cannot, then you have to admit that similarity between X(S) and Y(S) is the best fit for the kind of relationship they have.

    ReplyDelete
  16. dguller,

    >> Or the latter? That once a commonality is identified,
    >> one should reject it through refinement, and keep going
    >> until any and all commonality has been rejected--at which
    >> point it then can be asserted that the original claim
    >> that there is a commonality has been disproved?

    > No. Once a commonality has been identified, the chain
    > stops, but if you keep adding details, none of which are
    > the commonality, and you have added all the details you
    > can think of, none of which is the commonality, then you
    > can infer that there is no commonality. Your quote was:

    > “Your argument seems to boil down to the fact that you
    > can keep doing this until any and all commonality has
    > been rejected, at which point, or so you claim, the
    > original claim that there is a commonality has been
    > disproved.”

    > By “this” in your quote, I thought you were referring
    > to my process of adding details to each set of sentences,
    > as I was doing on September 17, 2012 12:42 PM. Doing
    > so without ever reaching the commonality is sufficient
    > demonstration of an absence of commonality. That’s all
    > I meant.

    > So, no contradiction here. Just a bit of misinterpretation.

    Okay, fine; just a bit of misinterpretation. But why you use two human beings--who, by virtue of being human beings, obviously have something in common--as an example of how we cannot say of two things that they have something in common when nothing common to both of them can be found?

    - - - - -

    >> Your (1**) translated back into natural language:
    >> "What is said of X and Y may be said in a purely
    >> univocal sense if and only if X and Y are the same
    >> thing."

    > Not just that they are the same thing, but that
    > they are perceived by the mind in the same way.

    By "perceived by the mind in the same way", do you mean to say "perceived by the mind in a univocal way"? One might as well say that 'Department of Redundancy' can be clarified by referring to it as 'Department of Redundancy Department'.

    - - - - -

    >> It may be that your (1**) clarifies what you want to
    >> say, but it clearly changes, rather than clarifies, (1).

    > What I said was the same as what Aquinas wrote. Prove
    > otherwise.

    I'm not sure you want to be saying that that is what Aquinas wrote.

    If you stand by your claim, then you are saying that Aquinas wrote that what is said of [a human being] and [a dog] may be said in a purely univocal sense if and only if [a human being] is a [dog].

    Look back on your argument; you explicitly stated, though with a somewhat different wording, that the referent of a thing and the thing itself are interchangeable.

    ReplyDelete
  17. dguller,

    You to Josh:

    Like I said, I think that it is impossible for there to be totally different senses that share the same referent, but I’m open to the possibility that I’m wrong, if you can provide an example of this.

    Michael's example above re 'bat' seems like an execellent qualifying example.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Rank:

    This isn't how Aquinas's metaphysics work. There has to be a maximum--there can't be a "fire" and a "fire*" unless one is couched in the other.

    That’s fine. There is a maximum fire and a maximum fire*.

    Something cannot be in potential unless it pre-exists in actuality.

    But that just means that the potentiality must actually exist. It really seems that pre-existent virtuality is circular with potentiality, i.e. pre-existent virtuality = potentiality. To say that Y is pre-existent and virtually in X just means the same thing as Y is a potentiality of X. They are two different ways of saying the same thing, i.e. X could do Y.

    although these seminal principles are not developed to actuality by any created power, as though they were infused by a created power, that which they have in a primitive way and virtually can develop into actuality by means of the activity of a created power.

    This sounds suspiciously like potentiality, even including the condition that for a potentiality to become actual is through the activity of another actual agent. As Aquinas says, “that which they have in a primitive way and virtually can develop into actuality by means of the activity of a created power” (bolded mine). You said earlier that the distinction between virtuality and potentiality was that the latter require an active agent to actualize, whereas the former does not. It seems that Aquinas disagrees with you.

    And, yes; everything on fire, or "fiery", is virtually within fire itself.

    Wow.

    Aquinas uses the term "potency" to refer to virtual composition from time to time, but they clearly do not mean the same things. Virtuality is prior to potentiality, because something cannot be potential unless it already pre-exists, in some fashion, within the efficient cause.

    I could argue the reverse, i.e. something cannot be virtual unless it is already potential. Honestly, can’t you see that this account is completely circular way of describing what could be the case? It really seems that virtual = potential.

    If your position is true, then Aquinas, Garrigou-Lagrange and others would be arguing from tautologies.

    Well, since I’m already claiming that the distinction between virtuality and potentiality is circular, I’m not too bothered by this charge, except by the fact that I disagree with it.

    But this, again, boils down to the cause being able to cause the effect just because, and it never gets around to explaining anything. "The cause can cause the effect because the cause can cause the effect." It simply must be a false interpretation.

    I think that it does explain how the cause can cause the effect. The effect E exists in a potential/virtual state within the cause C, and once that potential/virtual E is actualized by an external actual agent, then the potential/virtual E becomes an actual E. The actual presence of this potential/virtual state can also be conceived as a kind of power that the cause has, which is probably what Wippel meant. So, I disagree that it is a tautological account of causation. I actually think that it has merit.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Rank:

    This is fairly close, I think. Maybe not dead-on, but you're getting there.

    Well, my point is that virtuality is coextensive with potentiality, and each can be defined in terms of the other, hence the charge of circularity. However, I think that what they are both referring to is how a cause could cause an effect, and it tries to explain this by including within the cause a potential/virtual state that can become actualized. Is this objectionable?

    Redness, which potentially existed beforehand because it virtually pre-existed in whiteness. Remember, an efficient cause cannot give what it does not in some way have. The prism does not contain redness in any way. Therefore, it cannot be the efficient cause of redness.

    That’s fine.

    In a rough sense, I'd say yes. For redness to be created, in this situation, it needs the efficient cause to actualize a material cause. Since the prism cannot be the efficient cause, it must be the material cause--it clearly is not the formal or the final cause.

    That’s not fine. How on earth can the prism be the matter that the redness is composed of?

    I was going by the earlier link. Again, I know nothing about the Trinity, and I don't pretend otherwise.

    That’s fine. Just wanted to point out a problem here.

    Actually, it is. That was Aquinas's main argument for the distinction between essence and existence: his ability to contemplate the essences of non-existent entities. Oderberg makes similar arguments in Real Essentialism.

    But the essences that Aquinas held in his mind really existed as concepts in his mind. There is no such thing as an essence that does not exist in some sense, ultimately due to esse, and there is no such thing as esse that does have an essence, even esse subsistiens is such that its essence = existence. In other words, it still has an essence, but it is its existence. I don’t think anyone is claiming that esse subsistens has no essence at all, are they?

    It has a kind of being, but this should not be conflated with esse. As a logical being, it relies on the existence of a "host", even though it does not possess existence itself. Likewise, God, who is pure existence, knows all essences; but he is not obliged to join any of them with acts of existence. In all cases, essence is supervenient on existence.

    If it has a kind of being, then it is ultimately derived from esse. Remember, esse is what sustains everything at all times, and thus wherever anything exists, then it must be sustained by esse. That must include essences being conceived by an intellect, because otherwise, what the intellect is conceiving is actually nothing at all. Thus, it is impossible for an essence to be without existence.

    To say that a distinction is virtual is to say that something without ontological composition (in some regard) can be said to contain its effects, because they are contained "virtually" within the cause's uncomposed actuality.

    First, if you can deny ontological composition (in some regard), then can you also affirm ontological composition (in some other regard)? Or did you misspeak here? It seems that what you should have said was that a virtual distinction is such that there is no ontological composition (in any regard).

    Second, this just seems to be a stipulation rather than an argument. I mean, you are just asserting that the cause is “uncomposed actuality” and that this “uncomposed actuality” can contain a virtual multiplicity of effects within it. Why does the cause have to be uncomposed to begin with?

    ReplyDelete
  20. Rank:

    The pre-existence of conclusions in first principles is a good example. The first principles do not actually (i.e. "absolutely") contain all conclusions, for then their descriptions would be infinitely long; but, because they are the first principles, all conclusions pre-exist within them, which is why those conclusions can exist potentially outside of them.

    That doesn’t make any sense. A human being actually contains trillions of cells, but you do not have to describe each one of them to describe the human being. So, why is it the case that if first principles actually contained all conclusions, then they would have to be spelled out whenever mentioning the first principles? Can’t we talk in shortcuts, simplifications?

    Depends on your definition of "explicit", here.

    I want to know what you mean by “explicit”, and where it fits into the three scenarios that I mentioned.

    If you mean "logically real", then it would be in some step (1a), in which the intellect comprehended the pre-existent redness before it was brought into existence.

    How can the intellect comprehend redness in whiteness without ever seeing redness come out of whiteness? In other words, how can the intellect comprehend an effect that is pre-existent and virtually present in a cause without ever actually seeing the cause cause the effect to begin with?

    White light actually contains virtual redness. This is because white light is the "highest light", so to speak, and so it contains all colors virtually because it is a "purely actual light".

    Then it is no different from saying that white light actually contains potential redness.

    The mind can also understand actually non-composite things compositely, which is to say virtually.

    But then we can say that God is actually virtually composite, right?

    ReplyDelete
  21. Michael:

    A better example is a chemical molecule, say water. One molecule of water is composed of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen; so those three atoms are virtually in the molecule. They aren't potentially in the molecule - if they were, the molecule wouldn't be composed of them.

    I’m not following. The two atoms of hydrogen and the one atom of oxygen are actually in the molecule. You might as well say that the bricks that make up a house are also virtually in the house. No, you can actually see and touch them, and can actually pull one out to look at it, or even throw it.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Dguller,

    In the interest of brevity, I think the horse example as good as any other. Horse and man share a likeness with respect to strength, one exerting force (R) in the sense of physical power, the other in the sense of will power. I think those two senses different.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Glenn:

    Okay, fine; just a bit of misinterpretation. But why you use two human beings--who, by virtue of being human beings, obviously have something in common--as an example of how we cannot say of two things that they have something in common when nothing common to both of them can be found?

    Because the issue is what they have in common. Of course, they share a number of things in common with each other, but the analogy is supposed to be about one particular commonality, which you are trying to discover. It is not about finding any commonality whatsoever, but the right one. If you can never find the right one, then you can never understand the analogy, even if there are many commonalities involved. And if you cannot find any, then you not only cannot understand the analogy, but you don’t have an analogy at all.

    By "perceived by the mind in the same way", do you mean to say "perceived by the mind in a univocal way"? One might as well say that 'Department of Redundancy' can be clarified by referring to it as 'Department of Redundancy Department'.

    You missed the point that under your construal, you could not differentiate univocal from analogous comparisons, because both have the same referent. I was trying to explain that the only differentiating feature is that univocal comparisons have the same sense and analogous comparisons have a similar sense. Those are what those terms mean.

    If you stand by your claim, then you are saying that Aquinas wrote that what is said of [a human being] and [a dog] may be said in a purely univocal sense if and only if [a human being] is a [dog].

    No. A human being is like a dog in that they are both animals is a univocal comparison that does not require a human being to be a dog.

    Honestly, if you think Aquinas has a different definition of analogy than I am proposing, then quote me the one that he does endorse. Again:

    “All analogical predication occurs “according to an order or reference (respectus) to something one” (SCG 1.34.297). This “one” is not specifically or conceptually one, but one as an individual reality or nature is one. For example, medicine’s or urine’s “health” is derived from the health that is in the animal’s body, “and the health of the medicine and urine is not other than the health of the animal, which medicine produces and urine signifies (ST 1-2.20.3 ad3). Whenever healthy is used as a predicate, then, the same, concrete health of the animal is referred to, and thus Thomas can assert that the health of the medicine or urine is realy the same as the animal’s health. The various meanings of an analogical term are one insofar as the different relations signified are referred “to something one and the same” (Meta 4.1.535)” (Gregory P. Rocca, Speaking the Incomprehensible God: Thomas Aquinas on the Interplay of Positive and Negative Theology (CUA Press, 2004), pp. 139-40).

    And:

    “Something is predicated of different things in various ways: sometimes according to a meaning totally the same, and then it is said to be predicated of them univocally, as animal of horse and cow; sometimes according to meanings totally diverse, and then it is said to be predicated equivocally of them, as dog of the star and the animal; and sometimes according to meanings which are partly different and partly not different – different inasmuch as they imply different relations, one insofar as those different relations are referred to something one and the same – and then it is said to be predicated analogically, i.e. proportionally, as everything according to its own relation is referred to that one thing” (Meta 4.1.535, cited in Rocca, p. 129).

    Michael's example above re 'bat' seems like an execellent qualifying example.

    You’re joking, right?

    ReplyDelete
  24. Josh:

    In the interest of brevity, I think the horse example as good as any other. Horse and man share a likeness with respect to strength, one exerting force (R) in the sense of physical power, the other in the sense of will power. I think those two senses different.

    Yes.

    (1) A horse is strong
    (2) A human’s will is strong

    I think that what “strong” refers to in both (1) and (2) is exerting force to overwhelm opposing forces. Their senses are similar, though. They are partly different in that “strong” in (1) is indicative of physical force and “strong” in (2) is indicative of immaterial force. They are partly identical in that they are both properties that belong to animals, that facilitate each being’s continual survival, and so on. Hence, the senses of “strong” in (1) and (2) are similar, because they are partly the same and partly different.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Dguller,

    I think that what “strong” refers to in both (1) and (2) is exerting force to overwhelm opposing forces.

    I'm with you there

    Their senses are similar, though. They are partly different in that “strong” in (1) is indicative of physical force and “strong” in (2) is indicative of immaterial force. They are partly identical in that they are both properties that belong to animals, that facilitate each being’s continual survival, and so on.

    Can't concede this though. You identify the different senses, and there it is. That's really all that's needed in the mind for the analogy to work. Plus, Will is not an essential property to animal nature qua animal nature. So even that is not grounds for a partial sameness in senses.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Josh:

    Can't concede this though. You identify the different senses, and there it is. That's really all that's needed in the mind for the analogy to work. Plus, Will is not an essential property to animal nature qua animal nature. So even that is not grounds for a partial sameness in senses.

    First, what the mind focuses upon is not the same thing as what is there.

    Second, I never said that they were essential properties, but only that they were properties of animals.

    Third, do you deny that part of the sense of “strong” includes the features that I identified? After all, “strong” does carry implications of power, domination, survival, which I would argue are all part of the sense of “strong”.


    But do you deny that part of the meanings involved in “strong” in (1) and (2) includes that such strength contributes to the ongoing survival of the being in question,

    ReplyDelete
  27. Dguller,

    First, what the mind focuses upon is not the same thing as what is there.

    I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by this.

    Second, I never said that they were essential properties, but only that they were properties of animals.

    My mistake then, I assumed you were using 'property' the way Scholastics do, as "flowing from an essence." So accidental properties? Will isn't even a potential or accidental "property" of a horse, though. I'm not sure how you could say Will is a "property" of animals anyway; as it's only found in humans, properly speaking.

    Third, do you deny that part of the sense of “strong” includes the features that I identified? After all, “strong” does carry implications of power, domination, survival, which I would argue are all part of the sense of “strong”.

    No, I wouldn't deny that; I simply think that's covered completely by the R, as they're all basically synonyms of "exerting force," or they are senses that aren't relevant to the predication under consideration.

    But do you deny that part of the meanings involved in “strong” in (1) and (2) includes that such strength contributes to the ongoing survival of the being in question,

    No, but I don't think it has anything to do with the analogy, except as the effect of the strength in each, which is posterior and irrelevant to the understanding of the term we're predicating.

    ReplyDelete
  28. dguller,

    >> If you stand by your claim, then you are saying
    >> that Aquinas wrote that what is said of [a human
    >> being] and [a dog] may be said in a purely univocal
    >> sense if and only if [a human being] is a [dog].

    > No. A human being is like a dog in that they are
    > both animals is a univocal comparison that does
    > not require a human being to be a dog.

    Your argument clearly states that R(X) and X are interchangeable. You rightly disagree with the consequence. But unless you change the argument, the consequence continues to follow.

    You did not change your argument, but went on instead to say that you wrote what Aquinas wrote. It follows then, from your argument and subsequent claim, that what Aquinas wrote has the same consequence.

    Unless you change the argument, and amend your claim, the consequence (Aquinas wrote "..." (which you rightly disagree with)) continues to follow.

    - - - - -

    >> Michael's example above re 'bat' seems like an
    >> excellent qualifying example.

    > You’re joking, right?

    Your question either is an emission of chaff, or a tacit conveyance that you do not think that "nocturnal flying mammal" is a sense totally different from that of "a piece of equipment used to play baseball".

    ReplyDelete
  29. As Aquinas says, “that which they have in a primitive way and virtually can develop into actuality by means of the activity of a created power” (bolded mine). You said earlier that the distinction between virtuality and potentiality was that the latter require an active agent to actualize, whereas the former does not. It seems that Aquinas disagrees with you.

    Actually, he agrees with me. The principles are never actualized by the learner: they are the ground for the actualization of other potentials, because they contain the conclusions virtually. When the learner learns, he is not actualizing potentials within the premises, but rather actualizing potentials that result from the premises. And they result from the premises because said premises contain said conclusions virtually. If they were not in the principles virtually, then the conclusions could not be reached.

    I could argue the reverse, i.e. something cannot be virtual unless it is already potential. Honestly, can’t you see that this account is completely circular way of describing what could be the case? It really seems that virtual = potential.

    I never get over how some people think that they can find obvious holes in Aquinas. Do you really think that Thomism has a problem this major at the very source of its theology? Something that's gone unnoticed by scholars for centuries? It seems incredibly unlikely.

    Wippel got it wrong. You're going to have to accept that much. Aquinas says that God contains things virtually. If virtual = potential, then God contains potential. Do you really think he's that stupid? Or do you think he was just pulling a little slight of hand, a shell game, with potentiality?

    There is only one option. First principles are fully actual qua first principles and, as a result of the principle of proportionate causality, they contain all possible conclusions virtually. If they did not, then it would be impossible for first principles to cause conclusions, because they would not in any way contain them. If the definition is merely that they are able to cause them because they are able to cause them, then Aquinas was an idiot. The virtual distinction and the principle of proportionate causality are two of the most fundamental principles underlying his system. Do you honestly think that an error that obvious has been missed for 800 years?

    Well, since I’m already claiming that the distinction between virtuality and potentiality is circular, I’m not too bothered by this charge, except by the fact that I disagree with it.

    It is not my problem that Wippel was ignorant on this point. Aquinas and Garrigou-Lagrange make it clear that virtuality is not potentiality, and they explain why this is so.

    The effect E exists in a potential/virtual state within the cause C, and once that potential/virtual E is actualized by an external actual agent, then the potential/virtual E becomes an actual E. The actual presence of this potential/virtual state can also be conceived as a kind of power that the cause has, which is probably what Wippel meant.

    This would mean that first principles would have to be changed by a human if that human wanted to learn, which is impossible. It would also mean that the human substantial form was composed of actuality and potentiality (ignore the essence-existence distinction for now), and that, when a human learned, his substantial form literally changed. This is also impossible, because for a substantial form to change is for it to be destroyed. Hence, on your account, a human could not change without destroying his own identity.

    The only viable option is that the form, the first principles and God are fully actual qua their mode of existence, and that, as a result, they virtually contain other things that may come into existence on a "lower level" of actuality. Otherwise, you're led into direct contradictions.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Well, my point is that virtuality is coextensive with potentiality, and each can be defined in terms of the other, hence the charge of circularity. However, I think that what they are both referring to is how a cause could cause an effect, and it tries to explain this by including within the cause a potential/virtual state that can become actualized. Is this objectionable?

    Virtuality does not require potentiality, but potentiality requires virtuality. Hence, there is no potential opposed to God, but things can only come into existence because God contains them virtually. So, yes; it is objectionable. They are not coextensive. If first principles contain potentiality in themselves, which can be actualized by an agent, we are led into an impossible situation. If forms contain potentiality in themselves, then they can be actualized and changed, which is impossible. Your account must necessarily be wrong.

    That’s not fine. How on earth can the prism be the matter that the redness is composed of?

    At least at the moment of the redness's creation, there is no other option. Either the prism is the material or the efficient cause; and it is not the efficient cause. The prism contains the potential to project redness, which is actualized by the efficient cause of white light.

    But the essences that Aquinas held in his mind really existed as concepts in his mind. There is no such thing as an essence that does not exist in some sense, ultimately due to esse, and there is no such thing as esse that does have an essence, even esse subsistiens is such that its essence = existence. In other words, it still has an essence, but it is its existence. I don’t think anyone is claiming that esse subsistens has no essence at all, are they?

    Not entirely sure about that last question. Regarding the first ones, though, Aquinas differentiates between several types of being. First is God, who is being itself; next up are substances, which "subsist"; then come accidents, which have a "weak existence" by being tied to substances; and, finally, we have logical beings, which have no existence at all, but which may be comprehended by a human substance and in that sense supervene on it.

    If it has a kind of being, then it is ultimately derived from esse. Remember, esse is what sustains everything at all times, and thus wherever anything exists, then it must be sustained by esse. That must include essences being conceived by an intellect, because otherwise, what the intellect is conceiving is actually nothing at all. Thus, it is impossible for an essence to be without existence.

    Esse sustains the concepts indirectly, because it sustains the substances contemplating them. In this way, existence is higher than essence even though essence can in some sense lack direct existence.

    Second, this just seems to be a stipulation rather than an argument. I mean, you are just asserting that the cause is “uncomposed actuality” and that this “uncomposed actuality” can contain a virtual multiplicity of effects within it. Why does the cause have to be uncomposed to begin with?

    If it was really composed, then the distinction would not be virtual, but real. The thing in question must be ontologically indivisible but logically divisible. That's the point of the virtual distinction.

    ReplyDelete


  31. That doesn’t make any sense. A human being actually contains trillions of cells, but you do not have to describe each one of them to describe the human being. So, why is it the case that if first principles actually contained all conclusions, then they would have to be spelled out whenever mentioning the first principles? Can’t we talk in shortcuts, simplifications?

    You don't seem to realize that a human contains those cells virtually, despite my having said this several times. If they were not virtual, then they would be the human's actual constitution, which means that, yes, we would have to count every single one. We'd be left with reductionism. If first principles contained their conclusions not virtually but actually, then they would be infinitely long. If they contained them potentially, then they would have to change; but humans cannot change first principles, and so we're led into a contradiction.

    How can the intellect comprehend redness in whiteness without ever seeing redness come out of whiteness? In other words, how can the intellect comprehend an effect that is pre-existent and virtually present in a cause without ever actually seeing the cause cause the effect to begin with?

    Either he knows the virtual composition virtually (like with the conclusions of first principles), or he has seen the effect actually, and so is able to know that the cause contains the effect virtually.

    Then it is no different from saying that white light actually contains potential redness.

    If white light contained potential redness, then it would have to be actualized by something else. But this gets it backwards. The prism is not the efficient cause, nor can it ever be, because it does not contain color in any way. The only option is that the white light contains virtual redness, the prism can potentially result in redness when actualized, and the union of the two results in actual redness.

    But then we can say that God is actually virtually composite, right?

    We can say that God is actually simple and virtually composite, because he is the equivocal cause of all things.

    ReplyDelete
  32. dguller,

    Because the issue is what they have in common. Of course, they share a number of things in common with each other, but the analogy is supposed to be about one particular commonality, which you are trying to discover.

    A particular commonality is first noticed, then the analogy is made.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Josh:

    I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by this.

    I just meant that the “sense” of a term is broader than what is present to a particular mind.

    My mistake then, I assumed you were using 'property' the way Scholastics do, as "flowing from an essence." So accidental properties? Will isn't even a potential or accidental "property" of a horse, though. I'm not sure how you could say Will is a "property" of animals anyway; as it's only found in humans, properly speaking.

    All I meant was that both strength of muscles and strength of will are attributes that can be associated with some animals. In other words you can be an animal and have strength of muscles and/or strength of will. I did not mean to imply that this was the case for all animals or that it was an essential feature of animality.

    No, I wouldn't deny that; I simply think that's covered completely by the R, as they're all basically synonyms of "exerting force," or they are senses that aren't relevant to the predication under consideration.

    Is it really part of “exerting force” to sustain the survival of the being exerting the force? What about a rock falling? It has strength, but its fall will likely result in its being cleaved into parts. However, with animals strength is associated with survival.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Glenn:

    Your argument clearly states that R(X) and X are interchangeable. You rightly disagree with the consequence. But unless you change the argument, the consequence continues to follow.

    What are you talking about? In my example, “animal” is univocal because it has the same sense and referent in a human as in a dog. How does that change the argument that follows?

    The only controversial assumption that I made, and which Josh and I are exploring, is whether one sense can be similar to another sense, or whether the only possibly relationships are total identity and total difference. I claim the former, and he claims the latter.

    You did not change your argument, but went on instead to say that you wrote what Aquinas wrote. It follows then, from your argument and subsequent claim, that what Aquinas wrote has the same consequence.

    Well, that’s the whole point of my argument, i.e. that Aquinas’ doctrine has implications that he failed to realize compromised his system.

    Your question either is an emission of chaff, or a tacit conveyance that you do not think that "nocturnal flying mammal" is a sense totally different from that of "a piece of equipment used to play baseball".

    It was an expression of incredulity. My question was how you could have two senses that are totally different while having the same referent. “Bat” is not an example of this at all. “Bat” in such an equivocal context has two different senses, yes, but it also has two different referents. It is simply an accident of history that the word “bat” was assigned to both senses and referents. So, “bat” is a terrible example. “Strong” is a better one, and so Josh and I are exploring it.

    A particular commonality is first noticed, then the analogy is made.

    Right. And once a particular commonality is noticed, you have univocality. It is not enough to be “close” or “in the ballpark” of the commonality. You either have it, or you don’t. There are no degrees here.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Dguller,

    All I meant was that both strength of muscles and strength of will are attributes that can be associated with some animals. In other words you can be an animal and have strength of muscles and/or strength of will. I did not mean to imply that this was the case for all animals or that it was an essential feature of animality.

    It seems to me, though, that this is irrelevant to the predication; all we are concerned with in the predication is that one approaches the R from a perspective or sense that the other does not share in any way. Horses don't have immaterial will. It doesn't make any difference to horses that humans as rational animals have it. The analogy itself is secured by combining the same R with different S, full stop. Anything else is really extraneous to the predication.

    It also doesn't matter that humans can be said to share in physical strength with the horse, because, if that's the predication, then it's univocal.

    So, in this example, I recognize that there is a way in which the senses of strength can be the same and a way in which they are not, and one determines whether we are predicating analogically, and the other univocally.

    Is it really part of “exerting force” to sustain the survival of the being exerting the force? What about a rock falling? It has strength, but its fall will likely result in its being cleaved into parts

    No, it isn't part of it, and since our predication only refers to "exerting force," it's irrelevant to it.

    ReplyDelete
  36. dguller,

    >> Your argument clearly states that R(X) and
    >> X are interchangeable. You rightly disagree
    >> with the consequence. But unless you change
    >> the argument, the consequence continues to
    >> follow.

    > What are you talking about? In my example,
    > “animal” is univocal because it has the same
    > sense and referent in a human as in a dog.
    > How does that change the argument that follows?

    I was talking that argument of yours which you and I have been trading comments on (i.e., the one in which you said that your (1**) W(X) and W(Y) has a purely univocal sense iff S(X) = S(Y) and R(X) = R(Y) clarifies my 1) What is said of X and Y may be said in a purely univocal sense.

    You've been juggling a number of discussions, and no doubt have lost track.

    Moving on...

    ReplyDelete
  37. dguller,

    > My question was how you could have two senses
    > that are totally different while having the
    > same referent. “Bat” is not an example of this
    > at all. “Bat” in such an equivocal context has
    > two different senses, yes, but it also has two
    > different referents.

    This is not untrue, just not complete.

    A referent is something which is referred to; "nocturnal flying mammal" refers to 'bat', and "a piece of equipment used to play baseball" likewise refers to 'bat'. Two different senses with the same referent. {For future reference, I'll call this Way 1, or W1.}

    A referent also is something which refers to; so if you start with 'bat', you again have a referent with two different senses ("nocturnal flying mammal" and "a piece of equipment used to play baseball"). {For future reference, I'll call this Way 2, or W2.}

    The tack you may be taking is:

    1. Start with the term 'bat'.
    2. 'Bat' has two different senses.
    3. 'Bat' has the sense of "nocturnal flying mammal".
    4. 'Bat' also has the sense of "a piece of equipment used to play baseball".
    5. The referent of 3 is the actual, real, live, echo-locating, insect-eating, nighttime creature.
    6. The referent of 4 is the real, actual piece of wood used by a batter to hit a ball thrown by a pitcher.

    If this is the tack you're taking, fine. {For future reference, I'll call this Way 3, or W3.}

    However, your question was how you could have two senses that are totally different while having the same referent.

    The referent of "the actual piece of wood used by a batter to hit a ball thrown by a pitcher" qualifies not only under the sense of "a piece of equipment used to play baseball" but also under the sense of "a physical object employed to induce the death of a human being."

    In this instance, we have: term--"murder weapon"; sense--"a physical object employed to induce the death of a human being"; and, referent--"bat".

    It might be objected that in this instance we have a single sense with multiple referents, for screwdriver, gun, and knife, to name but a few other things, also qualify as referents under the same sense.

    But this objection holds no water, because this instance is merely one part of a demonstration that there can be two senses that are totally different while having the same referent.

    Whichever of the three ways--W1, W2 or W3--one wants to come at your question, the fact is that there can be a same referent with two different senses; or, if one prefers, two different senses with the same referent.

    - - - - -

    >> A particular commonality is first noticed,
    >> then the analogy is made.

    > Right. And once a particular commonality is
    > noticed, you have univocality. It is not
    > enough to be “close” or “in the ballpark”
    > of the commonality. You either have it, or
    > you don’t. There are no degrees here.

    1. A constellation of stars and a manufacturer of electronics are two different things. There is a constellation which is named Aries, and there is a manufacturer of electronics which also is named Aries. The constellation and the manufacturer have something in common--they have the same name. Your statement above suggests that univocality exists because this particular commonality has been noticed.

    2. As for there not being any degrees involved re a sharing in a commonality:

    o [Analogy] is of two kinds. Either it arises from this[,] that things share in something in greater or lesser degrees...

    (I'm uncertain as to how to set up the proper attribution; the quotation is from Aquinas' Commentary On The Sentences, and can be found here.)

    ReplyDelete
  38. Rank:

    Actually, he agrees with me. The principles are never actualized by the learner: they are the ground for the actualization of other potentials, because they contain the conclusions virtually.

    First, in the quote, Aquinas clearly says that if P is contained virtually in X, then P can become actual if actualized by “the activity of a created power”. Change “contained virtually in” to “a potentiality of”, and you’ve got the same explanation for potentiality.

    Second, you previously wrote: “If [the virtual properties] were potentially within the axioms, then something else would have to actualize the axioms, which is impossible”. The Aquinas quote that you cited seems to endorse the exact opposite, i.e. if X is virtually within the axioms, then “the activity of a created power” would be able to actualize them.

    Third, you still haven’t spelled out the precise difference between virtually X and potentially X.

    When the learner learns, he is not actualizing potentials within the premises, but rather actualizing potentials that result from the premises. And they result from the premises because said premises contain said conclusions virtually. If they were not in the principles virtually, then the conclusions could not be reached.

    When the learner infers a conclusion C from premises, he is taking a virtual/potential C and actualizing it into an actual C. In other words, the “activity of a created power” in this case would be the intellect acting upon the premises to extract the conclusions from a virtual/potential state to an actual state.

    You're going to have to accept that much. Aquinas says that God contains things virtually. If virtual = potential, then God contains potential. Do you really think he's that stupid? Or do you think he was just pulling a little slight of hand, a shell game, with potentiality?

    I do, actually. I think that virtuality is coextensive with potentiality, and you have not shown any clear distinction between the two. You can maybe better understand them as transcendentals that both refer to possibility, but do so in different ways, i.e. virtual or potential. However, they are ultimately the same thing.

    There is only one option. First principles are fully actual qua first principles and, as a result of the principle of proportionate causality, they contain all possible conclusions virtually. If they did not, then it would be impossible for first principles to cause conclusions, because they would not in any way contain them.

    Here’s my reframe:

    “First principles are fully actual qua first principles and, as a result of the principle of proportionate causality, they contain all possible conclusions potentially. If they did not, then it would be impossible for first principles to cause conclusions, because they would not in any way contain them.”

    Does the paragraph suddenly become incoherent and nonsensical, or do you still understand what it means?

    ReplyDelete
  39. Rank:

    If the definition is merely that they are able to cause them because they are able to cause them, then Aquinas was an idiot. The virtual distinction and the principle of proportionate causality are two of the most fundamental principles underlying his system. Do you honestly think that an error that obvious has been missed for 800 years?

    I don’t know. Would you accept someone saying the same thing when Aquinas criticized Aristotle? “Aristotle’s system has been in place for 1,500 years, and you dare to think that there is something in his system that has been missed for all that time?” I mean, that’s just an argument from authority, no?

    I don’t want to get into this stuff with you. I only want to know what is the distinction between potentiality and virtuality. It honestly seems to me that they refer to the same thing, i.e. X could do Y, and the “could” is grounded in potentiality in one case and in virtuality in another, but they both ultimately mean the same thing.

    And yes, if this is the case, then Aquinas’ system necessarily includes potentiality in God, and thus has a contradiction within it.

    Aquinas and Garrigou-Lagrange make it clear that virtuality is not potentiality, and they explain why this is so.

    What is the explanation? It seems that every explanation that you have made would make perfect sense by replacing “virtual” with “potential”, which seems to indicate that they are the same thing.

    This would mean that first principles would have to be changed by a human if that human wanted to learn, which is impossible.

    No, the first principles remain the same, but the conclusions within the first principles go from being virtual/potential to being actual and present, in this case to a particular intellect reasoning from the first principles.

    It would also mean that the human substantial form was composed of actuality and potentiality (ignore the essence-existence distinction for now), and that, when a human learned, his substantial form literally changed. This is also impossible, because for a substantial form to change is for it to be destroyed. Hence, on your account, a human could not change without destroying his own identity.

    Why would this be the case? The human substantial form is rooted in the primary actualities that the form brings with it. These primary actualities remain the same and are fully actual. However, primary actualities are also powers, and powers are just potentialities that a human could do, and these are the secondary actualities. So, what changes is whether the secondary actualities remain potential or actual. The human retains the same substantial form, even when secondary actualities are actualized, because the primary actuality remains the same. So, even on an account rooted in actuality and potentiality, it all still makes sense, or at least, it seems to still make sense to me.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Rank:

    Virtuality does not require potentiality, but potentiality requires virtuality.

    I think both depend upon each other in a circular fashion, because there is nothing that clearly distinguishes virtuality from potentiality.

    Hence, there is no potential opposed to God, but things can only come into existence because God contains them virtually. So, yes; it is objectionable.

    It is only objectionable, because of the theological contradiction that it implies, but that does not refute the argument. The best way for you to refute my claim that virtuality = potentiality is to distinguish them. You initially said that they were distinguished, because virtuality cannot be actualized by an actual agent, but then you provided a quote in which Aquinas actually says that this is what happens. As far as I know, that’s all that you have brought to the table regarding their differences.

    If first principles contain potentiality in themselves, which can be actualized by an agent, we are led into an impossible situation. If forms contain potentiality in themselves, then they can be actualized and changed, which is impossible. Your account must necessarily be wrong.

    First, your account assumes that if form F contains virtual and pre-existent forms A, B and C, then the essence of F has nothing to do with A, B and C. In other words, if F only contained virtual and pre-existent forms A and B, then F would be the same as if it contained virtual and pre-existent forms A, B and C. I think that what a thing is depends upon what a thing can do, and thus to change the pre-existent and virtual forms within F is to change F into another form G.

    Second, the form is the primary actuality A(P) that contains the potentiality for secondary actualities A(S1), A(S2), and so on.

    At least at the moment of the redness's creation, there is no other option. Either the prism is the material or the efficient cause; and it is not the efficient cause. The prism contains the potential to project redness, which is actualized by the efficient cause of white light.

    Then doesn’t that give you pause to reconsider the validity of your views? I mean, if your premises lead you to an absurd conclusion, then shouldn’t you re-evaluate the premises? It makes absolutely no sense to say that the prism is the matter that the red light is made out of. How is this possible? Does the red light in the white light strike the prism, take some of its matter, and become red light?

    Not entirely sure about that last question.

    It seems pretty clear that esse subsistens has an essence. Its essence is esse subsistens. Either it has an essence or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t have an essence, then its essence cannot be existence. If it does have an essence, then its essence must be existence.

    Regarding the first ones, though, Aquinas differentiates between several types of being. First is God, who is being itself; next up are substances, which "subsist"; then come accidents, which have a "weak existence" by being tied to substances; and, finally, we have logical beings, which have no existence at all, but which may be comprehended by a human substance and in that sense supervene on it.

    But the point is that every essence is already conjoined to a kind of actuality by virtue of being present in God’s mind in the primary and fundamental way, then either in immaterial or material creatures. To think about an essence is to think about an essence that exists, even if what the essence is about does not exist. Thus, it is impossible for an essence to be really distinct from existence, because then it would be nothingness.

    Esse sustains the concepts indirectly, because it sustains the substances contemplating them.

    The point is that the essence of X exists either in an immaterial intellect or in a material entity. In either case, the essence of X exists. The only difference is how the essence of X exists, i.e. immaterially or materially.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Rank:

    In this way, existence is higher than essence even though essence can in some sense lack direct existence.

    How can existence be higher than essence when existence itself is its own essence? It would have to be higher than itself, which is impossible.

    If it was really composed, then the distinction would not be virtual, but real. The thing in question must be ontologically indivisible but logically divisible. That's the point of the virtual distinction.

    What do you mean by “ontologically indivisible”?

    You don't seem to realize that a human contains those cells virtually, despite my having said this several times. If they were not virtual, then they would be the human's actual constitution, which means that, yes, we would have to count every single one.

    How can you say that the individual cells composing a human being are not really distinct? You can look at them under a microscope, and see that they are distinct. You can even watch them wither and die, replicate, move around, perform functions, and so on. And this is not virtual. This is real. It’s the same thing with the bricks of a house. If you are going to say that they are virtually distinct, but not really distinct, then I’m afraid that your distinction has lost its mind.

    If first principles contained their conclusions not virtually but actually, then they would be infinitely long.

    First, I’m talking about a human body and a brick house, neither of which is infinite.

    Second, I’m thinking that first principles are like primary actualities, which do not have to be actually infinite, even though their potential secondary actualities may actually be infinite.

    If they contained them potentially, then they would have to change; but humans cannot change first principles, and so we're led into a contradiction.

    Not if they contained them as potential secondary actualities.

    Either he knows the virtual composition virtually (like with the conclusions of first principles), or he has seen the effect actually, and so is able to know that the cause contains the effect virtually.

    But to know X virtually would mean knowing X but not actually knowing X.

    We can say that God is actually simple and virtually composite, because he is the equivocal cause of all things.

    Then why doesn’t virtual composition violate his absolute simplicity? It just seems that you have found a kind of composition that you simply cannot eliminate, and just wall it off, sterilize it, and deny that it is the right kind of composition that might compromise God’s absolute simplicity. But why? He is supposed to be without any kind of composition whatsoever. Why is it that this kind of composition is okay?

    Take a brick house, for example. You say that it is a unitary being, and that the multiplicity of bricks that composes the brick house are not really distinct, but rather are virtual. Therefore, the brick house has no composition, either? But that makes no sense.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Glenn:

    A referent is something which is referred to; "nocturnal flying mammal" refers to 'bat', and "a piece of equipment used to play baseball" likewise refers to 'bat'. Two different senses with the same referent. {For future reference, I'll call this Way 1, or W1.}

    Completely wrong. The referent of “noctural flying mammal” is not the same as the referent of “a piece of equipment used to play baseball”. Just because they share the same word does not mean that they are the same thing. If they were, then they would have to share all properties in common. And if that was true, then we should see flying baseball equipment sucking blood from cows, which we never do.

    If this is the tack you're taking, fine.

    That is the tack I’m on. So, we’re good so far.

    The referent of "the actual piece of wood used by a batter to hit a ball thrown by a pitcher" qualifies not only under the sense of "a piece of equipment used to play baseball" but also under the sense of "a physical object employed to induce the death of a human being."

    I disagree.

    “A physical object employed to induce the death of a human being” has a number of possible referents, not a single one. And which referent that sentence picks out depends upon the context. So, if the context is one in which a human being has been bludgeoned to death by someone wielding a baseball bat, then it would refer to a baseball bat, and not a gun, knife, and so on. However, if the context is one in which a human being has been shot, then it would refer to a gun, and not a baseball bat at all.

    And this differs from “the actual piece of wood used by a batter to hit a ball thrown by a pitcher”, which has only one possible referent, assuming a typical context.

    But this objection holds no water, because this instance is merely one part of a demonstration that there can be two senses that are totally different while having the same referent.

    But your demonstration presupposes that the sentences have content and content depends upon context. Until you have supplied the context, especially for a sentence that has multiple possible meanings and referents, your sentences simply are too indeterminate and vague to be part of an argument. I mean, you may as well say that “the bat killed him”, and pretend that this is determinate. It could mean that an animal killed him or that a human being with a baseball bat killed him. These are two totally different referents for the sentence with two different senses.

    the fact is that there can be a same referent with two different senses; or, if one prefers, two different senses with the same referent.

    But it does not have the same referent until you have supplied the context, especially with a sentence that is ambiguous, i.e. has multiple possible senses and referents. My argument states that you cannot have the completely different senses of the same word that share the same referent. What you have shown is that you can have the same word can have multiple senses and multiple referents, which is not a refutation of my claim.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Glenn:

    A constellation of stars and a manufacturer of electronics are two different things. There is a constellation which is named Aries, and there is a manufacturer of electronics which also is named Aries. The constellation and the manufacturer have something in common--they have the same name. Your statement above suggests that univocality exists because this particular commonality has been noticed.

    Yes, that would be an example of a univocal comparison. Aries is like Aries in that Aries shares the same name as Aries. But the point of comparison is: has the name “Aries”, and that has the same sense and referent in Aries the constellation and Aries the manufacturer. Or, to put it more explicitly:

    (1) Aries the constellation (i.e. Aries1) has the name “Aries”
    (2) Aries the manufacturer (i.e. Aries2) has the name “Aries”

    Aries1 is like Aries2 in that they both have the name “Aries”.

    Does that help?

    As for there not being any degrees involved re a sharing in a commonality:

o [Analogy] is of two kinds. Either it arises from this[,] that things share in something in greater or lesser degrees...

    This might help.

    (1) Dan is 2 meters tall
    (2) John is 1 meter tall
    (3) Dan’s height has more meters than John’s height

    Would you say that the meaning of “meter” is unclear here? It is absolutely clear and determinate, and a “meter” in (1) is the same as a “meter” in (2). They only differ in terms of how many meters is in (1) versus (2).

    What I am talking about is when the word “meter” does not mean the same thing in (1) and (2), and you’re not too sure what “meter” has in common between (1) and (2). As I tried to show above, you cannot come close to the commonality by just adding distinguishing features in (1) and (2), because without already knowing the commonality, you do not know if you are getting close or not. You may be diverging from the commonality by virtue of the addition of distinguishing features without even knowing it, kind of like pursuing an area of inquiry and feeling like you are getting closer, but actually reach a false conclusion, despite all your efforts.

    ReplyDelete
  44. On virtual vs. potential:

    If the conclusion of a valid argument existed actually in its premises, everyone who knew the premises would immediately know the conclusion; and obviously this is almost never the case.

    If the conclusion of a valid argument existed potentially in its premises, everyone who followed the argument, and thus came to know the conclusion, would thereby forget the premises; and obviously this is not the case.

    Yet clearly conclusions do exist in some fashion in premises, because people reach conclusions by following valid arguments from premises. And this is virtual existence that is not potential existence; therefore virtuality cannot be reduced to potentiality, and to say that God's intellect contains essences virtually does not attribute potentiality to God.

    ReplyDelete
  45. What you have shown is that you can have the same word can have multiple senses and multiple referents, which is not a refutation of my claim.

    What I have shown is that there can be multiple senses with the same referent, which is a refutation of your September 18, 2012 5:42 PM claim that "it is impossible for there to be totally different senses that share the same referent".

    You can make a new claim or revise the old claim, as you do above.

    But you cannot refute the refutation of a claim by substituting the refuted claim with a new or revised claim.

    ReplyDelete
  46. Glenn:

    What I have shown is that there can be multiple senses with the same referent, which is a refutation of your September 18, 2012 5:42 PM claim that "it is impossible for there to be totally different senses that share the same referent".

    But you didn’t.

    (1) A physical object employed to induce the death of a human being
    (2) The actual piece of wood used by a batter to hit a ball thrown by a pitcher

    (1) and (2) only have the same referent only if the context is such that the physical object in (1) was a bat, and not a gun, a knife, or any other lethal weapon. Furthermore, what if the context of (2) was a batter who had to use a plank of wood for some reason? Then the piece of wood would not be a bat at all. Again, context is key, and if you refuse to provide the context, then the meaning cannot be determinate. And once you have provided that context, then they have the same referent, i.e. a bat.

    However, the sense of (1) and (2) then is not completely different, but rather shares some similarities, including that the held wooden object in (1) and (2) is capable of significant physical force when used to strike something in both (1) and (2), is long in both (1) and (2), is a human invention in (1) and (2), is something that can crack under sufficient force in (1) and (2), is swung by a human being in an arch in both (1) and (2), and on and on. But it differs in (1) and (2), because in (1), it is being used to kill a human and because in (2), it is being used to hit a ball to win a baseball game.

    Again, you have to show a scenario in which the meaning of the sentences is determinate (i.e. not ambiguous and vague) such that each sentence has a clear sense and both sentences have the same referent, but senses that have nothing in common (excluding the referential aspect, and only focusing upon the semantic meaning aspect of the sense).

    ReplyDelete
  47. dguller,

    (1) Aries the constellation (i.e. Aries1) has the name “Aries”
    (2) Aries the manufacturer (i.e. Aries2) has the name “Aries”

    Aries1 is like Aries2 in that they both have the name “Aries”.

    Does that help?


    So, it is like saying,

    (1) dguller the human has intellect.
    (2) God has intellect.

    dguller is like God in that they both have intellect.

    You would say that this is a 'univocal comparison'.

    Yet you also have previously acknowledged that nothing can be univocally predicated of God.

    A 'univocal comparison', of course, is not necessarily a 'univocal predication', so there is no real problem here.

    It's just that we have succeeded in speaking of God and dguller in an analogous sense, i.e., in the way that Aquinas means it--neither in a purely univocal sense nor in a purely equivocal sense.

    ReplyDelete
  48. Michael:

    If the conclusion of a valid argument existed actually in its premises, everyone who knew the premises would immediately know the conclusion; and obviously this is almost never the case.

    True.

    If the conclusion of a valid argument existed potentially in its premises, everyone who followed the argument, and thus came to know the conclusion, would thereby forget the premises; and obviously this is not the case.

    Why would they forget the premises? If an acorn has the potential to become an oak, and it subsequently becomes an oak, then does that mean that I have forgotten about the acorn? You seem to think that once the potential conclusions become actual conclusions, then the actual premises somehow disappear and become non-existent. That isn’t necessarily the case. For example, I am potentially a father. Once I actually father a child and become a father, I still continue to exist. Similarly, the premises potentially contain their conclusions, and once those conclusions become actualized, the premises remain.

    ReplyDelete
  49. Glenn:

    dguller is like God in that they both have intellect.

    

You would say that this is a 'univocal comparison'.


    No, I would say that it is an analogous comparison, but that it must be rooted in a univocal comparison at some point, or else the meaning goes on and on in an infinite regress.

    

Yet you also have previously acknowledged that nothing can be univocally predicated of God.

    Yup. That’s the problem. All analogy necessarily reduces to univocality, and thus if nothing can be understood univocally of God, then nothing can be understood about God, period.

    

A 'univocal comparison', of course, is not necessarily a 'univocal predication', so there is no real problem here.

    What’s the difference?

    It's just that we have succeeded in speaking of God and dguller in an analogous sense, i.e., in the way that Aquinas means it--neither in a purely univocal sense nor in a purely equivocal sense.

    That’s the exact issue, i.e. whether his account of analogy is possible. Simply repeating it does not justify it. I understand that it is neither fully univocal nor fully equivocal, but something in between, i.e. partly the same and partly different. We all agree that the partly the same aspect must include having the same referent, and we also agree that the partly different aspect must include having different senses. Where we disagree is whether the senses are completely different or only partially different between the analogues. That is the issue.

    Any thoughts on the matter?

    ReplyDelete
  50. I think perhaps I got lost in the shuffle there a while back, but I just want to say:

    Man is strong
    Horses are strong

    Strength (R):exerting force, power
    S(man):immaterial will
    S(horse):material muscle movement

    Sorry, I still don't see a similarity relationship between those two senses, because the material is diametrically opposed to the immaterial. And those three things, by necessity, are all that's needed to ground my analogy.

    ReplyDelete
  51. For all those bringing up the Trinity here, see Fr. Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.'s excellent Trinity and God the Creator.

    ReplyDelete
  52. Josh:

    Man is strong

    Horses are strong



    Strength (R):exerting force, power

    S(man):immaterial will

    S(horse):material muscle movement



    Sorry, I still don't see a similarity relationship between those two senses, because the material is diametrically opposed to the immaterial. And those three things, by necessity, are all that's needed to ground my analogy.


    First, even immaterial will is similar to material muscle movement. They are both activities of some kinds of substances, are both directed towards the good, are both secondary to the internal processing of animals, for example.

    Second, we need to first agree about what we mean by “sense”.

    I take “sense” to mean that mental apprehension of the meaning of a term, which necessarily occurs from a particular perspective that includes a web of interconnected meanings and connotations that are drawn into the meaning of the term in question. Sense would then be analogous to the visual perception of an object from a particular perspective. Depending upon the perspective, you will observe the object in different ways, even though it is the same object. Furthermore, what you subjectively experience is a phantasm produced by the internal mechanism of phantasia, and not the actual object, even though your subjective experience is about the actual object.

    The sense is like the internal phantasm, which would both include a phantasm of the object, but also about the different features of the object associated with that particular perspective. Similarly, the sense is not the referent, because the sense operates in our minds capacity to generate meaning, and the meaning of a term is not the actual referent, but is about the referent. The idea of an object (and the meaning of the term referring to an object) is not the object itself, which is outside our mind, but rather the idea (and the meaning of the term) is about the object (and referent).

    That is why the sense is the modus significandi, i.e. the way that the referent is signified or represented to our minds, which has to be distinct from the res significandi, i.e. the actual thing that is being signified or represented.

    What do you think?

    ReplyDelete
  53. Dguller,

    First, even immaterial will is similar to material muscle movement. They are both activities of some kinds of substances, are both directed towards the good, are both secondary to the internal processing of animals, for example.

    I should have left 'movement' out, because that's properly just reiterating 'exerting,' which isn't part of the sense. Regardless, once that's understood, while I'll agree that these two things are things that inhere in substances generally speaking (as all things inhere in a substance generally speaking), the very point is that immaterial will doesn't inhere in a horse at all but does in a human.

    That is why the sense is the modus significandi, i.e. the way that the referent is signified or represented to our minds, which has to be distinct from the res significandi, i.e. the actual thing that is being signified or represented.

    I really have no quibble with this, except to note that, like the mind/body relation, I think Thomists would see this as a holistic union, and not a case of different "substances" interacting. Not that I'm saying that's what you're saying there, but just to prevent confusion on this point.

    Like I say, I do think it comes down to the fact that the horse and man come to a thing signified from completely different views wrt will/physical strength.

    For there to be similarity on this, the property of immaterial will would have to be in a horse in some way, wouldn't you agree? I think you'd also agree that it isn't, in Scholastic terms at least.

    ReplyDelete
  54. Josh:

    I should have left 'movement' out, because that's properly just reiterating 'exerting,' which isn't part of the sense. Regardless, once that's understood, while I'll agree that these two things are things that inhere in substances generally speaking (as all things inhere in a substance generally speaking), the very point is that immaterial will doesn't inhere in a horse at all but does in a human.

    I agree that an immaterial will is present in a human but cannot be present in a horse. But that does not mean that they can have nothing in common. As you agreed, immaterial will and material muscles are both involved in the movement of substances towards the good. And thus, they have something in common.

    I really have no quibble with this, except to note that, like the mind/body relation, I think Thomists would see this as a holistic union, and not a case of different "substances" interacting. Not that I'm saying that's what you're saying there, but just to prevent confusion on this point.

    Okay, but it is a holistic union between two substances, i.e. an immaterial mind that can re-present an external material object within itself. I mean, a human being thinking about a horse is not a holistic union, but rather two substances in a particular kind of relationship. Specifically, the human being has the ability to contain a representation of the horse within his mind, and the representation is about the horse outside of his mind. Sure, that is a kind of union if taken as a system involving two individuals, i.e. a present horse that is re-presented in a mind.

    Like I say, I do think it comes down to the fact that the horse and man come to a thing signified from completely different views wrt will/physical strength.

    Absolutely. But we need to be clear that the res significandi is not the modus significandi, because the res significandi exists independent of thought whereas the modus significandi is how the res significandi is re-presented in the mind, and every re-presentation in the mind occurs from a particular perspective, context, and web of meaning. And different perspectives, contexts and webs of meaning will bring different senses (modus significandi) to the same referent (res significandi).

    For there to be similarity on this, the property of immaterial will would have to be in a horse in some way, wouldn't you agree? I think you'd also agree that it isn't, in Scholastic terms at least.

    I don’t see why. For there to be similarity between the strength of an immaterial will and the strength of material muscle, there must be partial identity and partial difference between the two. In other words, they must share some things in common and some things as different, which I think is clearly the case here.

    Are we in agreement so far?

    ReplyDelete
  55. Dguller,

    I agree with most everything, except when you said:

    As you agreed, immaterial will and material muscles are both involved in the movement of substances towards the good. And thus, they have something in common.

    Surely you see that "movement of substances towards the good" is just another way of putting the R, which is an activity/movement/"exertion" in a way(S) to a good (implicit in the R, and any activity for that matter) which is what they have in common.

    Every time you point to what is supposedly the partial sameness in the S, it is actually contained in the R!

    ReplyDelete
  56. Josh:

    Surely you see that "movement of substances towards the good" is just another way of putting the R, which is an activity/movement/"exertion" in a way(S) to a good (implicit in the R, and any activity for that matter) which is what they have in common.

    But here’s the kicker. Now, that we agree upon what “sense” and “referent” are supposed to mean, at least in a general outline that likely requires revision, I would rewrite your account as follows:

    (1) Man is strong


    (2) Horses are strong

    “Strong” in (1) refers to “exerting force”, but with respect to “immaterial will”, and “strong” in (2) refers to “exerting force”, but with respect to “material muscle”.

    We agree that “strong” in (1) and (2) refers to the exertion of force, and that the difference is in terms of what exactly is exerting that force. In (1), what is exerting the force is the immaterial will, and in (2), what is exerting the force is the material muscle.

    Where we disagree is whether the “exertion of force” counts as a referent only, which is your position, or as a sense and a referent, which is my position.

    Now, if senses must be mental constructs that refer to objects, and referents must be the objects themselves, then it must be the case that the referent exertion of force must also have the sense “exertion of force”. In other words, “exertion of force” is the sense and exertion of force is the referent for “exertion of force”. The referent is what the sense is about.

    So, what you have is:

    (1) Man is strong in the sense of exerting his immaterial will in a forceful manner
    (2) Horse is strong in the sense of exerting his material muscles in a forceful manner

    In (1) and (2), the common referent of “strong” would be exertion of force, as we agreed. However, the sense of “strong” in (1) would be “exertion of his immaterial will in a forceful manner” and the sense of “strong” in (2) would be “exertion of his material muscles in a forceful manner”. These two senses share a partial identity and partial difference. The partial identity is the sense of “exertion of force”, which is distinct from the referent exertion of force, because the former is the mental construct and the latter is what the mental construct is about. The partial difference is the sense of “immaterial will” in (1) and “material muscle” in (2).

    The only contentious point here is whether I am correct that there is a distinction between the sense of “exertion of force” as a mental construct that is about exertion of force as the referent of the sense. In other words, you have the sense of “exertion of force” and then you have the referent of exertion of force, and the sense is the mental construct that directs itself towards the referent. They cannot be identical, because one is a mental construct, and the other is an external “entity” (loosely defined).

    Does that help?

    ReplyDelete
  57. First, in the quote, Aquinas clearly says that if P is contained virtually in X, then P can become actual if actualized by “the activity of a created power”. Change “contained virtually in” to “a potentiality of”, and you’ve got the same explanation for potentiality.

    Then the first principles would change. You're just going to have to admit that you've gotten it wrong.

    The Aquinas quote that you cited seems to endorse the exact opposite, i.e. if X is virtually within the axioms, then “the activity of a created power” would be able to actualize them.

    A "created power" actualizes conclusions that arise outside of the first principles, equivocally. If the potentials were within them, then the first principles would change from the premises to the conclusions, and would either A) become both at once, which is impossible; or B) stop being the first principles and change into the conclusions, in which case the premises would be lost.

    Created power actualizes potentials that do not exist inside of the principles themselves, but outside of them. They exist outside because of the virtual distinction inside. That's all there is to it.

    Third, you still haven’t spelled out the precise difference between virtually X and potentially X.

    If something contains potentiality, then it can be changed from one thing to another. If it contains virtuality, then it can result in potential outside of itself. Aquinas says that medicine virtually contains health. Does this mean that medicine is potentially healthy? Of course not. It means that medicine contains health virtually, so that it can cause health outside of itself. If it contained a potential for health in itself, then it would have a potential to be healthy. This is obviously false.

    It has a power to cause health, which is not a potential inside of itself--this can be proven easily. If the medicine contained a potential to give health, then it would have to be actualized by something that possessed health actually, like with the white light and the prism. The prism has no light within itself, but it has the potential for light, which can be actualized by actual light. However, health itself does not exist inside things except virtually, which means that, if we collapse the distinction between virtual and potential, then the "healthy thing" that actualized the health-giving potential in the medicine would itself only have potential health. This means that we're left with an infinite regress of potential health-giving, and nothing that possesses it actually. Since you claim that even God's virtuality is potential, we cannot even appeal to an "Unhealed Healer" to grant health to the chain. We're left in absurdity.

    “First principles are fully actual qua first principles and, as a result of the principle of proportionate causality, they contain all possible conclusions potentially. If they did not, then it would be impossible for first principles to cause conclusions, because they would not in any way contain them.”

    Does the paragraph suddenly become incoherent and nonsensical, or do you still understand what it means?


    No, it's incoherent. If they contained the conclusions potentially, we have two problems. First, first principles would be subject to change, which is impossible. Second, we would have an infinite regress on our hands, akin to the medicine. Something would have to contain the conclusions actually in order to cause them in the principles, but there is nothing that could contain them actually. Therefore, infinite regress.

    ReplyDelete
  58. Why would this be the case? The human substantial form is rooted in the primary actualities that the form brings with it. These primary actualities remain the same and are fully actual. However, primary actualities are also powers, and powers are just potentialities that a human could do, and these are the secondary actualities. So, what changes is whether the secondary actualities remain potential or actual. The human retains the same substantial form, even when secondary actualities are actualized, because the primary actuality remains the same. So, even on an account rooted in actuality and potentiality, it all still makes sense, or at least, it seems to still make sense to me.

    But the substantial forms contains all possibilities of the human virtually. If you replaced "virtual" with "potential", then substantial forms would contain potential, and they would change when a human actualized those potentials. This is impossible.

    First, your account assumes that if form F contains virtual and pre-existent forms A, B and C, then the essence of F has nothing to do with A, B and C. In other words, if F only contained virtual and pre-existent forms A and B, then F would be the same as if it contained virtual and pre-existent forms A, B and C.

    This is false. If F only contained virtual forms A and B, then it would necessarily be a different kind of actuality. Something contains virtual distinctions insofar as it is actual in a certain respect. If F contained only A and B and not C, then it could not be the same: it would have to be F1 instead of F. Note that virtual things do not change actual things--rather, actual things are necessarily connected to certain virtual traits.

    Then doesn’t that give you pause to reconsider the validity of your views? I mean, if your premises lead you to an absurd conclusion, then shouldn’t you re-evaluate the premises? It makes absolutely no sense to say that the prism is the matter that the red light is made out of. How is this possible? Does the red light in the white light strike the prism, take some of its matter, and become red light?

    Good luck coming up with a better system of causality.

    In any case, the red light, as long as it is being projected through the prism, is indeed to some extent composed by the prism. It virtually contains light particles, however.

    It seems pretty clear that esse subsistens has an essence. Its essence is esse subsistens. Either it has an essence or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t have an essence, then its essence cannot be existence. If it does have an essence, then its essence must be existence.

    Its essence and existence are identical, which is to say that there is no distinction whatsoever between essence and existence in God.

    But the point is that every essence is already conjoined to a kind of actuality by virtue of being present in God’s mind in the primary and fundamental way, then either in immaterial or material creatures. To think about an essence is to think about an essence that exists, even if what the essence is about does not exist. Thus, it is impossible for an essence to be really distinct from existence, because then it would be nothingness.

    That's a non sequitur. If essence was not really distinct from existence, then all kinds of absurd impossibilities would follow, as Oderberg explicates in Real Essentialism.

    Your problem, here, is that you're equivocating between different meanings of "exist". To say that something exists is to say that it has esse, which means that it is ontologically, mind-independently real. But not everything that has being has esse. This is true of logical beings, which rely on but are not conjoined with esse.

    ReplyDelete


  59. The point is that the essence of X exists either in an immaterial intellect or in a material entity. In either case, the essence of X exists. The only difference is how the essence of X exists, i.e. immaterially or materially.

    You're equivocating again.

    What do you mean by “ontologically indivisible”?

    Holistic. Emergent. Substantial. You know the drill--something that is whole and is not the sum of its parts. A human form is ontologically indivisible, but logically divisible, because we can consider its genera and so forth.

    How can you say that the individual cells composing a human being are not really distinct? You can look at them under a microscope, and see that they are distinct. You can even watch them wither and die, replicate, move around, perform functions, and so on. And this is not virtual. This is real. It’s the same thing with the bricks of a house. If you are going to say that they are virtually distinct, but not really distinct, then I’m afraid that your distinction has lost its mind.

    You've imported reductionist notions from modern metaphysics. You're going to have to check them at the door.

    Second, I’m thinking that first principles are like primary actualities, which do not have to be actually infinite, even though their potential secondary actualities may actually be infinite.

    If first principles are primary actualities, then they contain all possible secondary actualities and potentialities virtually. Otherwise, secondary actualities could not exist, because they would not have a cause that fit with the principle of proportionate causality.

    But to know X virtually would mean knowing X but not actually knowing X.

    Not actually, but not potentially either.

    Then why doesn’t virtual composition violate his absolute simplicity?

    I already defined absolute simplicity for you. Virtual distinction to not violate it.

    Take a brick house, for example. You say that it is a unitary being, and that the multiplicity of bricks that composes the brick house are not really distinct, but rather are virtual. Therefore, the brick house has no composition, either? But that makes no sense.

    The brick house is composed of form and matter. The form is the plan of the house; the matter, in this case, would be the bricks. But the atoms inside the bricks are merely virtual. (I can't remember if I said in the past that the bricks were virtual; if I did, then I misspoke.) But, again, God is not composed in this way. He doesn't have anything in himself in the way that bricks are within a house. Rather, he himself is totally actual, and, as a result, virtually contains all other actual things. He is not composed of them in any way: one-way causation, remember.

    ReplyDelete
  60. Why would they forget the premises? If an acorn has the potential to become an oak, and it subsequently becomes an oak, then does that mean that I have forgotten about the acorn? You seem to think that once the potential conclusions become actual conclusions, then the actual premises somehow disappear and become non-existent. That isn’t necessarily the case. For example, I am potentially a father. Once I actually father a child and become a father, I still continue to exist. Similarly, the premises potentially contain their conclusions, and once those conclusions become actualized, the premises remain.

    Fatherhood is not a substance, and it does not make sense to say that fatherhood is in a man as oakhood is in an acorn. Nor is it accurate to say that your future children are contained within you right now as a conclusion is contained within first premises.

    I'll restate: if "A entails B" meant that knowing B is potentially in knowing A, the process of entailment would be a reduction of potency in the knowledge of A to act. But to reduce a potency in something to act is to change the thing itself, to make it other than it was before. So (under the assumption) one comes to know B by changing one's knowledge of A into something quite different. But of course this isn't how knowledge works at all; therefore entailment is not a relation of potency to act.

    ReplyDelete
  61. Holistic. Emergent. Substantial. You know the drill--something that is whole and is not the sum of its parts. A human form is ontologically indivisible, but logically divisible, because we can consider its genera and so forth.

    I should note that a form is divisible in that it is part of an essence-existence hybrid--but just set this aside for now, for clarity's sake.

    ReplyDelete
  62. Dguller,


    Where we disagree is whether the “exertion of force” counts as a referent only, which is your position, or as a sense and a referent, which is my position.

    Yes; I think it wholly unwarranted to say that the referent has a further sense and further referent itself. I think this makes no sense ha ha.

    I'm going to delve into Frege since we're using his concepts here. He uses an analogy:

    Somebody observes the Moon through a telescope. I compare the Moon itself to the reference; it is the object of the observation, mediated by the real image projected by the object glass in the interior of the telescope, and by the retinal image of the observer. The former I compare to the sense, the latter is like the idea or experience. The optical image in the telescope is indeed one-sided and dependent upon the standpoint of observation; but it is still objective, inasmuch as it can be used by several observers.

    If someone uses a word to refer to the Moon, it will have a sense to it, in this case the image in the telescope. So what you are saying now is that the thing itself, the Moon, has a further sense and reference? What does the Moon refer to other than itself? And how can this be expressed in terms actually different and not synonymous with the expressed sense?

    I believe you are multiplying entities here.

    Now, if senses must be mental constructs that refer to objects

    Given that I (and Frege) deny this premise, I'll forego the rest of your post which is built on it. For Frege, the sense is explicitly not our mental constructs or ideas.

    Now, if senses must be mental constructs that refer to objects, and referents must be the objects themselves, then it must be the case that the referent exertion of force must also have the sense “exertion of force”. In other words, “exertion of force” is the sense and exertion of force is the referent for “exertion of force”. The referent is what the sense is about.

    A word's reference is either an idea of something, or the thing itself, but not both. Frege makes this point:

    To assume that in the sentence 'The Moon is smaller than the Earth' the idea of the Moon is in question, would be flatly to misunderstand the sense. If this is what the speaker wanted, he would use the phrase 'my idea of the Moon'.

    Given that, I can't make any sense out of your words there anyway. If my word refers to the Moon, then it carries the sense of "the Moon." You're conflating the idea with the reference, and compounding entities in your referent.

    ReplyDelete
  63. dguller,

    Ach, falling behind on the comments here; to catch up on a couple...

    >> As for there not being any degrees involved
    >> re a sharing in a commonality: o [Analogy]
    >> is of two kinds. Either it arises from this[,]
    >> that things share in something in greater or
    >> lesser degrees...

    > This might help.

    > (1) Dan is 2 meters tall
    > (2) John is 1 meter tall
    > (3) Dan’s height has more meters than John’s
    > height

    > Would you say that the meaning of “meter” is
    > unclear here? It is absolutely clear and
    > determinate, and a “meter” in (1) is the same
    > as a “meter” in (2). They only differ in terms
    > of how many meters is in (1) versus (2).

    Dan and John share in 'height', to a greater and lesser degree.

    - - - - -

    >> A 'univocal comparison', of course, is not
    >> necessarily a 'univocal predication', so
    >> there is no real problem here.

    > What’s the difference?

    This would be for you to explicate.

    That a constellation and an electronics manufacture have the same name, 'Aries', you said is an example of a univocal comparison. The name 'Aries', however, says nothing about, and therefore does not predicate anything of, the natures, attributes or qualities of the constellation and manufacturer. Since you say there is a univocal comparison where no univocal predication has been made, it follows that you see a difference between 'univocal comparison' and 'univocal predication'.

    So, again, it is for you to explicate the difference.

    ReplyDelete
  64. Since you say there is a univocal comparison where no univocal predication has been made, it follows that you see a difference between 'univocal comparison' and 'univocal predication'.

    This may be clearer,

    Although there is no univocal predication, you say there is a univocal comparison. It follows, then, that you see a difference between 'univocal comparison' and 'univocal predication'.

    ReplyDelete
  65. Josh:

    Yes; I think it wholly unwarranted to say that the referent has a further sense and further referent itself. I think this makes no sense ha ha.

    The referent does have a sense, but it does not have a further referent. There is the sense and the referent. That is it. The sense is the mental construct about the referent, and the referent just is what the mental construct is supposed to be about. In other words, a sense must be a mental construct about a referent, but a referent could be either a mental construct (i.e. a thought about a thought) or a particular entity (i.e. a word about a dog) or a universal (i.e. a word about humanity in general).

    If someone uses a word to refer to the Moon, it will have a sense to it, in this case the image in the telescope. So what you are saying now is that the thing itself, the Moon, has a further sense and reference? What does the Moon refer to other than itself? And how can this be expressed in terms actually different and not synonymous with the expressed sense?

    No. I’m saying that the sense is the image in the telescope which is a re-presentation of the Moon, which is the referent, and that’s all. In other words, the sense is the mental construct, “moon”, which is about the actual moon. I am not multiplying entities, but only saying that both senses and referents can be complex.

    Given that I (and Frege) deny this premise, I'll forego the rest of your post which is built on it. For Frege, the sense is explicitly not our mental constructs or ideas.

    I think that what Frege meant was similar to what I wrote earlier, i.e. that the senses in our minds about a referent do not exhaust all the meanings associated with the referent. When think of dog when I hear the word “dog”, then I am thinking about a dog. However, the thoughts in my mind about dog do not exhaust the full meaning of what dog is. So, language is bigger than what I can hold in my particular mind, and language is the repository of senses. However, language does not exist without language-users, much like chess does not exist without chess-players. That was all I meant by “mental construct”, i.e. it is something that we have thought up with our minds.

    Anyway, none of this changes the fact that the sense of “strong” is “exertion of force” and the referent is exertion of force. The sense of “exertion of force” cannot be the actual exertion of force.

    A word's reference is either an idea of something, or the thing itself, but not both.

    Right.

    Given that, I can't make any sense out of your words there anyway. If my word refers to the Moon, then it carries the sense of "the Moon." You're conflating the idea with the reference, and compounding entities in your referent.

    I’m not multiplying entities. And even sticking with Frege’s formulation, you actually have three parts: the thought “exertion of force”, the sense “exertion of force”, and the referent exertion of force. According to your account, which one of these parts would have to be missing?

    ReplyDelete
  66. Glenn:

    Dan and John share in 'height', to a greater and lesser degree.

    Right. And? The meaning of “height” is determinate and clear and the same in both scenarios. The only difference is how tall each thing is. None of this is imprecise or indeterminate, and so I don’t know how this is supposed to support your position. Again, my claim was that simply adding details to a comparison does not necessarily get you to something in common that grounds the comparison, and that unless you can get to this commonality, then you cannot justify the comparison at all, except on faith.

    That a constellation and an electronics manufacture have the same name, 'Aries', you said is an example of a univocal comparison. The name 'Aries', however, says nothing about, and therefore does not predicate anything of, the natures, attributes or qualities of the constellation and manufacturer. Since you say there is a univocal comparison where no univocal predication has been made, it follows that you see a difference between 'univocal comparison' and 'univocal predication'.

    Here’s the difference, as far as I can tell, and none of this is relevant to the core argument, by the way, but here we go. Say you have a comparison:

    (1) X is like Y in that they share Z in common

    (1) would be a univocal comparison, because Z has the same sense and referent in X and Y.

    You can further analyze (1) into:

    (2) X is Z
    (3) Y is Z

    You can say that “is Z” in (2) and (3) are univocal predications, because Z has the same sense and referent in both (2) and (3).

    I think that univocal comparison and univocal predication are just different formulations of the same thing. In other words, the following proposition is necessarily true:

    (4) X is like Y in that they share Z in common iff X is Z and Y is Z

    The left side would be univocal comparison and the right side would be univocal predication.

    Anyway, I’m unclear about the relevance of this to my argument.

    ReplyDelete
  67. Rank:

    You've give me a lot to consider, and I'm taking my time with my response. Plus, things are busy at work and home right now. Big birthday party for my son on Saturday, so that's the priority at this time, but rest assured, I am reflecting on your excellent posts, and will respond when I get the chance.

    ReplyDelete
  68. Dguller,

    No. I’m saying that the sense is the image in the telescope which is a re-presentation of the Moon, which is the referent, and that’s all. In other words, the sense is the mental construct, “moon”, which is about the actual moon.

    How odd that you say that the image in the telescope is a mental construct.

    I am not multiplying entities, but only saying that both senses and referents can be complex.

    I get that a given referent can have many senses attached to it, but I don't see at all how the complexity goes further than that.

    And even sticking with Frege’s formulation, you actually have three parts: the thought “exertion of force”, the sense “exertion of force”, and the referent exertion of force.

    Frege:

    In what follows there will be no further discussion of ideas and experiences; they have been mentioned here only to ensure that the idea aroused in the hearer by a word shall not be confused with its sense or its reference.

    and:

    A proper name (word, sign, sign combination, expression) expresses its sense, stands for or designates its reference. By means of a sign we express its sense and designate its reference.

    Obviously a person's subjective images or constructs are different from person to person. Sadly, this makes them irrelevant to an understanding of meaning, because we can only get meaning where sense and/or reference are the same. So while there are three parts, only two matter in Frege's analysis, as he explicitly states.

    You keep dividing the referent of strong into "exertion of force" and exertion of force. What is the purpose of this and what is the meaning of what's set off in quotation marks.

    My analysis is much simpler and captures everything necessary:

    Man is strong
    Horse is strong

    Strong refers to the exertion of force in both.

    The sense of the exertion in man is in terms of his immaterial will, and the sense of the exertion in the horse is in terms of his physical muscle.

    Please explain what aspect of meaning is not captured by this and why it is necessary.

    ReplyDelete
  69. Happy birthday to dguller jr!


    Cheers!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  70. Josh:

    How odd that you say that the image in the telescope is a mental construct.

    The telescope is something that humans have built in order to see the moon. Similarly, language is something that humans have developed in order to communicate about the world to one another. That’s all I meant.

    I get that a given referent can have many senses attached to it, but I don't see at all how the complexity goes further than that.

    You can focus upon different aspects of a referent. For example, I can talk about a dog, the leg of a dog, the hair on the leg of a dog, the color of the hair on the leg of a dog, and so on. Each of these is about the dog, but also about a specific aspect of the dog, which means that the referent is being sub-divided and made more specific. So, when you talk about the color of the hair on the leg of a dog, you are referring to the dog, yes, but more accurately, you are referring to a particular part of the dog.

    And yes, many different senses can be attached to a single referent, but taken as a holistic unit, as well as about its various aspects or parts.

    Obviously a person's subjective images or constructs are different from person to person. Sadly, this makes them irrelevant to an understanding of meaning, because we can only get meaning where sense and/or reference are the same. So while there are three parts, only two matter in Frege's analysis, as he explicitly states.

    But we have no access to senses or referents, except through our thoughts, and thus we cannot just arbitrarily ignore them as unimportant parts of the equation. Whether Frege thought they were important is unimportant, because the reality is that you do require the three components, as you yourself agree.

    You keep dividing the referent of strong into "exertion of force" and exertion of force. What is the purpose of this and what is the meaning of what's set off in quotation marks.

    The quotation marks is supposed to be the sense and the italicized part is the referent. Sense S = “exertion of force”. Referent R = exertion of force. Your analysis completely ignores S as non-existent, and says that there is only R, which I disagree with.

    Strong refers to the exertion of force in both.

    The word strong has the sense “strong”, which refers to exertion of force.

    

The sense of the exertion in man is in terms of his immaterial will, and the sense of the exertion in the horse is in terms of his physical muscle.

    See? Even here, you completely ignore the sense of “exertion of force”, bypassing it entirely as non-existent, and just look at the senses of “immaterial will” and “material muscle”. Where did the sense of “exertion of force” go? It just vanished, such that you just have the referent of exertion of force, and senses of “immaterial will” and of “material muscle”. What connects “immaterial will” and “material muscle” together? On my account, what connects them is the sense of “exertion of force”. On your account, there is no such sense at all. In other words, if I was to use the words exertion of force, then there would be no sense “exertion of force”, and only the referent exertion of force, which I think is ridiculous, because every referent must have a sense associated with it, including just exertion of force.

    ReplyDelete
  71. Dguller,

    You can focus upon different aspects of a referent. For example, I can talk about a dog, the leg of a dog, the hair on the leg of a dog, the color of the hair on the leg of a dog, and so on. Each of these is about the dog, but also about a specific aspect of the dog, which means that the referent is being sub-divided and made more specific. So, when you talk about the color of the hair on the leg of a dog, you are referring to the dog, yes, but more accurately, you are referring to a particular part of the dog.

    Again, mine and Frege's analysis is simpler: If you're talking about a dog, and then talking about a dog's leg, those are two different referents, not two aspects of the same referent. Otherwise, you're saying that each word refers to a multiplicity of referents, by which it follows that no one can ever know what the hell anyone is ever talking about.

    The telescope is something that humans have built in order to see the moon. Similarly, language is something that humans have developed in order to communicate about the world to one another. That’s all I meant.

    In the context of that example, you said the sense was a mental construct. A telescope's image, which in Frege's example is the analog of sense is not a mental construct, though it's an artifact of man. The only mental construct in this analysis is the idea itself by which a thing is pointed to.

    But we have no access to senses or referents, except through our thoughts, and thus we cannot just arbitrarily ignore them as unimportant parts of the equation.

    It's not arbitrary; they by their natures cannot be compared between two speakers as sense and reference can, and are therefore not germane to analysis of meaning.

    Even here, you completely ignore the sense of “exertion of force”, bypassing it entirely as non-existent, and just look at the senses of “immaterial will” and “material muscle”. Where did the sense of “exertion of force” go?

    The senses of exertion of force in the example just are IN THE SENSE OF immaterial will, and IN THE SENSE OF physical muscle. There is no "exertion of force." The only senses of exertion of force (R) just are the two specified, and they're different.

    What connects “immaterial will” and “material muscle” together?

    The common reference to strength, exertion of force! I cannot for the life of me understand why this is difficult.

    Someone looks at the Moon and "sees" it in two analogically related ways. One, in the sense of an image produced by a telescope. Two, a concept produced by an intellect. Both are united by virtue of referring to, being about, the Moon. It's like a tennis ball held by two threads, one material in its hold, the other immaterial.

    Show me why I need more than this to exhaust a meaning of any given word or predication. Compel me logically, because I am just not seeing it.

    It's getting close to agree-to-disagree point for me. But you can add my well-wishes for your son!

    ReplyDelete
  72. You've give me a lot to consider, and I'm taking my time with my response. Plus, things are busy at work and home right now. Big birthday party for my son on Saturday, so that's the priority at this time, but rest assured, I am reflecting on your excellent posts, and will respond when I get the chance.

    Sounds good. And good luck with the birthday party.

    ReplyDelete
  73. Josh:

    Again, mine and Frege's analysis is simpler: If you're talking about a dog, and then talking about a dog's leg, those are two different referents, not two aspects of the same referent. Otherwise, you're saying that each word refers to a multiplicity of referents, by which it follows that no one can ever know what the hell anyone is ever talking about.

    Remember that the referent is the dog. If the dog has parts, then the referent (= the dog) has parts. To talk about a part of a dog is to refer to a part of a dog, and thus you are referring to a part of the referent. In other words, you are correct that you have two referents, R1 and R2, but R2 is a part of R1.

    And each word does refer to a multiplicity of referents, and the sense is what allows you to decide which referent you are, in fact, referring to. For example, the word “dog” can refer to a canine animal, an unfaithful and flirtatious romantic partner, the activity of persistently following someone, and so on. The sense of “dog” will be the guide of which of these diverse referents the word “dog” is about, within a particular context, of course.

    In the context of that example, you said the sense was a mental construct. A telescope's image, which in Frege's example is the analog of sense is not a mental construct, though it's an artifact of man. The only mental construct in this analysis is the idea itself by which a thing is pointed to.

    Yes, you are right. I misspoke, and appreciate the correction.

    The senses of exertion of force in the example just are IN THE SENSE OF immaterial will, and IN THE SENSE OF physical muscle. There is no "exertion of force." The only senses of exertion of force (R) just are the two specified, and they're different.

    First, if the sense of “exertion of force” is implicitly present in the sense of “immaterial will” and the sense of “physical muscle”, then it seems fair to say that “exertion of force” is part of the sense of “immaterial will” and “physical muscle”. In other words, immaterial will and physical muscle are just different kinds of forceful exertions, i.e. different kinds of strength. And if that is true, then we can say that the sense of “immaterial will” and “physical muscle” are partly the same, and partly different.

    Second, I think that we need a more refined definition of “strength”, because I just realized that if one’s will meets no opposition, then it cannot be said to be strong. It would be strong if it overcame all opposition, and thus it must be a part of the meaning of “strength” to include not only the exertion of force, but also the overcoming of resistance. And if that is true, then since it is possible for an immaterial will and a physical muscle to encounter no resistance, then it cannot be the case that “strong” is part of the sense of immaterial will and physical muscle.

    Third, what would say the sense is of “strong”? You cannot say “exertion of force”, because that is the referent. Does “strong” lack a sense? But every word has both a sense and a referent, and so something must be missing in your account.

    Show me why I need more than this to exhaust a meaning of any given word or predication. Compel me logically, because I am just not seeing it.

    Like I said, what would you say is the sense and referent of “strong”? Frege would say that it is impossible for there to be a referent without sense, and so if you agree that the word “strong” refers to exertion of force, then what is the sense? I would say that the sense is “exertion of force”, which is the semantic construct within our language that our thoughts apprehend in order to refer to exertion of force as a referent.

    ReplyDelete
  74. Dguller,

    I'm going to try to make this more explicit:

    Any term can refer to several different things.

    We only know which is being referred to by determining the sense(s) in which the term is used.

    Once we know the sense, we know how the term is both being used and what one thing exactly it refers to. Nothing more than this is needed to communicate.

    Now, the referent is the Moon, and the sense is the perspective through the telescope. Or, the referent is Venus, and the senses are the perspective looking on it in the morning, and the perspective looking on it in the evening.

    I'm afraid I'm still missing the part where Frege says:

    You have a referent Venus. The sense of Venus is "Venus." The senses of "Venus" are the perspective looking on it in the morning, and the perspective looking on it in the evening.

    If I take the parts where I'm talking about "Venus" out of the above analysis, it doesn't change a damn thing, aside from making it amenable to common sense.

    If I ran into you at the store, and you said to me "I am a dog," I'd be puzzled. I'd call up the myriad of things that 'dog' could refer to, and then I'd ask, "in what sense?" And if you had the gall to say to me "dog," making quotation symbols with your hands, I'd say, "oh, perhaps you are retarded," and drop a quarter at your feet.

    Given this, I don't see how you can hope to convince anyone of this analysis.

    Third, what would say the sense is of “strong”? You cannot say “exertion of force”, because that is the referent. Does “strong” lack a sense? But every word has both a sense and a referent, and so something must be missing in your account.

    Given that I don't think "strong" is something that exists in its own right, but is just the irrelevant 'idea' that Frege completely ignores, this is not a problem for me. If I subscribed to Locke's epistemological suicide proposition, that all we know directly are our own ideas, then you may actually have a point. But I don't, because that notion quickly falls into absurdity, as noted in a thousand places (including our good host's pages).

    Watch this:

    Socrates: That man is as strong as a horse.

    Plato: Whatever could you mean by 'strong' in that sentence?

    Socrates: Why, I mean his exertion of force, of course!

    Plato: But surely, you bald bastard, you don't mean that in the sense of physical strength? The horse is clearly stronger in that regard.

    Socrates: No, I mean in the sense of his willpower, you dumbass.

    QED

    C'mon Dguller. You know what you're trying to get at here is bogus.

    I mean, if we have a sense of exertion of force that is "exertion of force," what about the sense of that; is it ""exertion of force""? And what about the sense of that??? """Exertion of force"""? How am I to know that my sense of "exertion of force" isn't just a representation of a representation of a representation of a repre...aw, screw it.

    ReplyDelete
  75. Follow this:

    Socrates: That man is as strong as a horse.

    Plato: Whatever could you mean by 'strong' in that sentence?

    Socrates: Why, I mean his exertion of force, of course!

    Plato: But surely, you bald bastard, you don't mean that in the sense of physical strength? The horse is clearly stronger in that regard.

    Socrates: No, I mean in the sense of his willpower, you dumbass.


    Eurystheus: Come now, gentleman. 'tis Hercules of which you speak, is it not? If so, the fault is entirely mine.

    (Without responding, Plato and Socrates turn in unison to look at Eurystheus.)

    Eurystheus: Ah, I thought so. Yes, Hercules is as strong as a horse. If you fine gentleman can endure a bit of correction, however, I think we may all agree that Hercules actually is stronger than a horse; strong as many horses combined, as a matter of fact. At least since completing the fifth of the twelve labors assigned to him. As I say, the fault is entirely mine.

    (Without responding, Plato and Socrates turn in unison to look at one another.)

    Plato (after a pause, and to Socrates): What was it Polemarchus said was justice?

    Socrates: Some nonsense about an eye for an eye. Or maybe it was a tooth for a tooth. I forget which just now.

    Plato: Or a vial for something vile, eh?

    Socrates: My good man, I think you're on to something. (Ponders for a moment, then shrugs his shoulders.) I can always use something else at my trial. (Turns to Eurystheus.) A small gift for you, for clearing the air.

    Eurystheus (calling after Plato and Socrates as they hurry away): Hermes Cologne...?

    Socrates (calling over his shoulder): For drinking, not wearing. Try it, you'll like it!

    ReplyDelete
  76. Josh:

    I can see how this is frustrating, but a lot of it just has to do with the limitations of language and I am expressing myself.

    Here’s how it goes. Let’s ignore the thought part of the equation, as Frege did. The relationships that you have are term T → sense S → referent R. T is neither S nor R. S is neither T nor R. R is neither T nor S. All R’s that we talk about and can understand must have a T and an S. It is impossible for us to be talking about an R and not also be using a T and an S. In other words, whenever you have a T and an R, there must be an S mediating between the two.

    So, when you say that when we are talking about the referent exertion of force, then there is no sense associated with it, or you say that the sense just is the referent, then if the former, then you would just be wrong, because all referents must have senses associated with them, and if the latter, then you are completely ignoring how the referent is represented in our language, because that is what the sense is.

    When I wrote that the sense of the referent exertion of force was “exertion of force”, what I meant was that the sense “exertion of force” is the linguistic and semantic representation of the referent exertion of force. We do not pass the referent exertion of force between us while we talk, because it is outside of us as a referent. What we do pass between us is the sense “exertion of force” whenever we talk about exertion of force.

    Once we know the sense, we know how the term is both being used and what one thing exactly it refers to. Nothing more than this is needed to communicate.

    But it does not follow that the sense disappears. Just because you know that the term strong has the sense “exertion of force”, which refers to exertion of force, does not mean that the sense “exertion of force” just disappears. It is the mediator between the term and the referent. If it disappears, then the term loses its referent altogether, because the sense is the linguistic and semantic representation of the referent. It is how the referent re-presents itself within language. If you eliminate the sense, then the referent is invisible in our language altogether, because the sense is our linguistic telescope to observe the world of referents. And if you eliminate the telescope, then you cannot see that world at all.

    Now, the referent is the Moon, and the sense is the perspective through the telescope. Or, the referent is Venus, and the senses are the perspective looking on it in the morning, and the perspective looking on it in the evening.

    Right.

    You have a referent Venus. The sense of Venus is "Venus." The senses of "Venus" are the perspective looking on it in the morning, and the perspective looking on it in the evening.

    Notice that Frege does not say that there is no sense of Venus. He says that there is a sense of Venus, and it is “Venus”. In fact, there are two senses, and probably are much more that he simply ignored for simplification. The bottom line is that Frege does not say that you have the referent without the sense at all.

    ReplyDelete
  77. Josh:

    If I take the parts where I'm talking about "Venus" out of the above analysis, it doesn't change a damn thing, aside from making it amenable to common sense.

    It does change everything. If you take out the sense of “Venus” from the equation, then that would be like taking out the perspectives of Venus from our perception, and claiming to still be able to talk about Venus. How can you talk about Venus without doing so from within a perspective of Venus? To talk about the referent Venus is to use the word Venus and the senses “Morning Star” and “Evening Star”.

    Or to use the example of the Moon. To eliminate the sense of “Moon” from the equation would be to eliminate the telescope by which the Moon is perceived, and then still talk about what you see about the Moon.

    If I ran into you at the store, and you said to me "I am a dog," I'd be puzzled. I'd call up the myriad of things that 'dog' could refer to, and then I'd ask, "in what sense?" And if you had the gall to say to me "dog," making quotation symbols with your hands, I'd say, "oh, perhaps you are retarded," and drop a quarter at your feet.

    That does not refute the need to have a sense for every referent. It just means that I would have to be more precise. I would say that the sense would be “a flirtatious male”, which would then refer to flirtatious male. And even though this seems like a tautology, it is not, because the sense “flirtatious male” is distinct from the referent flirtatious male. The sense is part of language, and the referent is what language is trying to capture and connect with outside of itself.

    Oh, and one more point that I failed to mention earlier. You wrote that “The senses of exertion of force in the example just are IN THE SENSE OF immaterial will, and IN THE SENSE OF physical muscle. There is no "exertion of force."” The problem is that if “strong” is necessarily part of the sense of “immaterial will”, then it would be impossible for there to be a weak immaterial will or a weak physical muscle, because that would be a contradiction. Thus, there is a broader sense of “the exertion of force by an immaterial will”, and thus you must make mention of “the exertion of force” as well as mention of what is exerting the force, i.e. immaterial will or physical muscle. You cannot just ignore the “exertion of force” part, because it is an essential part of the analogy. And you cannot just say that “exertion of force” just is the referent, because the referent exertion of force must itself have its own sense for it to be connected to language at all.

    And what means is that you have the following sentences:

    (1) Jack the man is strong on the basis of the exertion of force by his immaterial will
    (2) Seabiscuit the horse is strong on the basis of the exertion of force by his physical muscles

    “Strong” in (1) and (2) necessarily has the sense of “exertion of force by X” and what X is, i.e. immaterial will in (1) and physical muscle in (2). “Strong” in (1) is similar to “strong” in (2) in that they both have the same sense of “exertion of force by X” and the same referent of exertion of force, but they differ in what X is.

    ReplyDelete
  78. Josh:

    I mean, if we have a sense of exertion of force that is "exertion of force," what about the sense of that; is it ""exertion of force""? And what about the sense of that??? """Exertion of force"""? How am I to know that my sense of "exertion of force" isn't just a representation of a representation of a representation of a repre...aw, screw it.

    There is no further sense of “exertion of force”, as far as I can tell. The sense “exertion of force” perfectly maps the referent exertion of force. There can be further analysis of the kind of force exerted, how it is exerted, what is exerting it, and so on, but those build upon that foundational sense of “exertion of force” that refers to exertion of force.

    You just need to remember that the sense is just a linguistic and semantic construct that represents something else, i.e. the referent. It is a mediating entity between our terms and what our terms are about. Much as the telescope allows us to see the Moon, the senses of our terms allow us to connect linguistically and semantically with the referents of our terms. If you remove the mediating entity, then you sever the connection, much like if you remove the telescope, then you no longer see the Moon. They necessarily go together as a holistic unity.

    It seems to me that you are trying to sever this connection between term-sense-referent by saying that the term strong just refers to the referent exertion of force without a mediating sense. According to Frege, that would be impossible. You can never just have the term and referent, but rather you must connect the term to a linguistic and semantic construct that is about a particular referent. And when you write that the sense “immaterial will” and the sense “physical muscle” both necessarily include the reference to exertion of force without also including the sense “exertion of force”, then I take you as saying that there is no sense “exertion of force” associated with the referent exertion of force. And my reply is that Frege would say that is impossible, because every referent must have an associated sense in order to represented and referred to in human language.

    ReplyDelete
  79. Dguller,

    In other words, whenever you have a T and an R, there must be an S mediating between the two.

    A term is composed of a sense and reference. My structure is thus:

    T-Strong
    S-Perspective on strong: "immaterial will's 'perspective'"
    R-Exertion of force: the act itself external to the mind

    Yours seems to be:

    T-Strong
    S-"Exertion of force": the concept
    S of S- "immaterial will's 'perspective'" on "Exertion of force," making this an S the of the concept which is an R to it.
    R-Exertion of force: the act itself external to the mind

    Notice that Frege does not say that there is no sense of Venus. He says that there is a sense of Venus, and it is “Venus”.

    Nowhere have I denied that there is a sense to a term. I deny that the senses refer to another sense as referent, which refers itself to a referent outside the mind.

    Also, I see no evidence that what you are saying is what Frege had in mind for the definition of a sense at all:

    It is clear from the context that by 'sign' and 'name' I have here understood any designation representing a proper name, which thus has as its reference a definite object (this word taken in the widest range), but not a concept or a relation, which shall be discussed further in another article.

    and

    It is natural, now, to think of there being connected with a sign (name, combination of words, letter), besides that to which the sign refers, which may be called the reference of the sign, also what I should like to call the sense of the sign, wherein the mode of presentation is contained. In our example, accordingly, the reference of the expressions 'the point of intersection of a and b' and 'the point of intersection of b and c' would be the same, but not their senses. The reference of 'evening star' would be the same as that of 'morning star,' but not the sense.

    In both these examples there is no reference whatsoever to a "Venus." The senses are simply given by 'morning star' and 'evening star,' which both refer to a definite object Venus.

    ReplyDelete
  80. (cont.)

    It seems to me that you are trying to sever this connection between term-sense-referent by saying that the term strong just refers to the referent exertion of force without a mediating sense.

    I've never said that, ever. When I'm using the term strong to compare a man and horse, I'm referring to the real act of exertion in each, and the mode that the act is presented in in each, which is exactly the way Frege describes sense i.e., will exerting strength on one hand, and muscles exerting strength on the other, will be the senses of the act. These senses or modes mediate my understanding so that I don't conflate will and physicality.

    It doesn't matter that a term is a mental construct, because we aren't explicitly referring to the mental construct, but rather, what it points to(reference), and how that thing that it points to exists(sense).

    Strong” in (1) and (2) necessarily has the sense of “exertion of force by X” and what X is, i.e. immaterial will in (1) and physical muscle in (2). “Strong” in (1) is similar to “strong” in (2) in that they both have the same sense of “exertion of force by X” and the same referent of exertion of force, but they differ in what X is.

    If you are saying that two terms are similar when they are analogical, then I'll agree. If you are saying a term is composed of two elements, a sense and a reference, I'll agree. If you are saying the sense is a concrete thing itself, with senses that are contained within it that refer to it, thereby justifying a similar relationship between senses, thereby enabling you to say there is univocal predication on the basis of sense, I don't agree, on the basis of it being completely unnecessary for the analysis of any term.

    You've got the Moon, and the way it's being looked at, and you've got the word that combines the two. End of story.

    ReplyDelete
  81. Dguller,

    At this point, I think it's probably wise to make a Copleston/Russell style "summing up" by way of closing remarks. I'm not seeing a way through this thicket, but at I least I (and hopefully others) have a grasp on where the differences lie for whenever analogy comes up again.

    ReplyDelete
  82. Wow this is still happening? I have some real catching up to do.

    ReplyDelete
  83. Josh:

    T-Strong
S-"Exertion of force": the concept
S of S- "immaterial will's 'perspective'" on "Exertion of force," making this an S the of the concept which is an R to it.
R-Exertion of force: the act itself external to the mind

    Here’s my analysis, but maybe in a clearer fashion. I’m changing how I present terms. The term will be in “quotes”, the sense will be in italics, and the referent will be in bold:

    (1) A horse is strong
    (2) A man is strong

    The term in (1) and (2) is “strong”. We agree.

    If you were to look at (1) in isolation from (2), then the sense of “strong” is exertion of force by physical muscle, and the referent of “strong” is exertion of force by physical muscle. And if you were to look at (2) in isolation from (1), then the sense of “strong” is exertion of force by immaterial will, and the referent of “strong” is exertion of force by physical muscle.

    When you start making a comparison between (1) and (2), then the analysis begins. You have to look for partial identity and partial difference, because that is what “similarity” means. And what you see is that the term “strong” shares the same sense exertion of force and referent exertion of force, but differs in that the sense of “strong” in (1) involves by an immaterial will and the sense of “strong” in (2) involves by a physical muscle, and both of these can be taken to ultimately refer to exertion of force, because they are simply two different ways to exert two different kinds of force.

    Where we differ is whether the senses of exertion of force by immaterial will and exertion of force by physical muscle can be further decomposed into a partly identical sense and a partly different sense, i.e. whether exertion of force by immaterial will can be decomposed into (a) exertion of force by X and (b) X = immaterial will, for example.

    Because senses are linguistic and semantic constructs that inherently contain complexity within themselves and outside themselves by virtue of their place within the complexity of language itself, I think it makes sense to be able to break them down into sub-components. Even the image of the moon in the telescope can be broken down into sub-components, i.e. the shape of the moon in the image, the color of the moon in the image, the surface of the moon in the image, the motion of the moon in the image, and so on. You can focus your attention upon any of these different aspects of the image, and still ultimately be looking at the moon through the image on the telescope. Similarly, you can look at the sense of a term and direct your attention to different sub-components of that sense, and yet still ultimately be referring to the same referent.

    Nowhere have I denied that there is a sense to a term. I deny that the senses refer to another sense as referent, which refers itself to a referent outside the mind.

    What? What does the term “thought” refer to that is “outside the mind”? Obviously, referents can be either inside the mind or outside the mind. The referent just has to be outside the term and the sense. Thus, you can have senses that refer to senses, just as you can have thoughts that refer to thoughts.

    ReplyDelete
  84. Josh:

    In both these examples there is no reference whatsoever to a "Venus." The senses are simply given by 'morning star' and 'evening star,' which both refer to a definite object Venus.

    Venus can be the sense of the actual planet Venus. Remember that Venus is the linguistic and semantic entity within our language that refers to the actual planet Venus. After all, when you are talking about Venus, and not talking about the Morning Star or the Evening Star, then the sense is Venus. For example, when you are reading an astronomy book about Venus, whenever you see the word “Venus”, the sense is Venus and the referent is Venus, because every referent must have a sense associated with it, and the sense depends upon the context and the sense’s place within the system of language.

    I've never said that, ever. When I'm using the term strong to compare a man and horse, I'm referring to the real act of exertion in each, and the mode that the act is presented in in each, which is exactly the way Frege describes sense i.e., will exerting strength on one hand, and muscles exerting strength on the other, will be the senses of the act. These senses or modes mediate my understanding so that I don't conflate will and physicality.

    Exactly. The senses would be immaterial will exerting force and physical muscle exerting force, and both would refer to exertion of force. You seemed to imply that the senses had to be immaterial will and physical muscle without including the sense of exerting force, which would be essential for the senses of immaterial will and physical muscle to be connected to exertion of force and ultimately exertion of force. After all, not every expression of will or muscular contraction is strong, and there are weak immaterial wills and weak physical muscles, which means that not every exertion of will or muscle would be associated with strong.

    If you are saying that two terms are similar when they are analogical, then I'll agree.

    No. The two terms must be identical in an analogy.

    If you are saying a term is composed of two elements, a sense and a reference, I'll agree.

    Good.

    If you are saying the sense is a concrete thing itself, with senses that are contained within it that refer to it, thereby justifying a similar relationship between senses, thereby enabling you to say there is univocal predication on the basis of sense, I don't agree, on the basis of it being completely unnecessary for the analysis of any term.

    The sense is a particular entity. It is a linguistic and semantic construct within the web of language that is about a particular referent. It is not a metaphysically simple construct that is indivisible, but rather is a complex entity that is composed of sub-components that can be analyzed. Your entire argument hinges on rejecting this idea. You are effectively claiming that a particular sense S is a metaphysically simple entity of some kind, whereas I am claiming that S is complex and compound.

    ReplyDelete
  85. Dguller,

    This won't be resolved, I think. Best we can hope for is marking the lines of demarcation.

    If you were to look at (1) in isolation from (2), then the sense of “strong” is exertion of force by physical muscle, and the referent of “strong” is exertion of force by physical muscle. And if you were to look at (2) in isolation from (1), then the sense of “strong” is exertion of force by immaterial will, and the referent of “strong” is exertion of force by physical muscle.

    I can only hope that last clause was a mistake...

    What? What does the term “thought” refer to that is “outside the mind”? Obviously, referents can be either inside the mind or outside the mind. The referent just has to be outside the term and the sense. Thus, you can have senses that refer to senses, just as you can have thoughts that refer to thoughts.

    In our example, we've been referring to an act in reality. Obviously, if we start referring to our thought of "strong," which has been done repeatedly, then we aren't referring any longer to something outside the mind, insofar as it's not the object under scrutiny.

    No. The two terms must be identical in an analogy.

    Of course, nominally, but the similarity comes in when analyzing the relationship between a term's composition.

    There is literally nothing that can keep you from multiplying senses under your schema. It's just arbitrary where you're deciding to stop. Once you admit that there are senses of senses, there is absolutely no reason why there can't be senses of senses of senses ad infinitum. All of this seems a desperate attempt to avoid the conclusion that you know is at the end of the road.

    You say:

    The senses would be immaterial will exerting force and physical muscle exerting force, and both would refer to exertion of force. You seemed to imply that the senses had to be immaterial will and physical muscle without including the sense of exerting force, which would be essential for the senses of immaterial will and physical muscle to be connected to exertion of force and ultimately exertion of force.

    You know exactly what I'm saying. The term strong in the context of the sentence 'The Man is strong' is composed of a sense and a reference. You put them together, and you get


    The man is [strong]
    The man is [exerting force through his will].

    Listen, my explanation of this is perfectly understandable. It incorporates the sign, the mode of signifying, and the thing signified. I'm very sorry that some strange idealism of a sort is keeping you from this elegance, and indirectly, meaningful language about God, but I don't think it'll ruin it for the rest of us. That's all I'll say now, you can have the last word and let the internet be the judge. Cheers, boss.

    ReplyDelete
  86. Josh:

    There is literally nothing that can keep you from multiplying senses under your schema. It's just arbitrary where you're deciding to stop. Once you admit that there are senses of senses, there is absolutely no reason why there can't be senses of senses of senses ad infinitum. All of this seems a desperate attempt to avoid the conclusion that you know is at the end of the road.

    First, of course there is something that can stop an ad infinitum series of senses, and that is the context. The context delimits the appropriate senses and referents of terms.

    Second, here’s a similar argument. “There can’t be thoughts of thoughts, because then you can have thoughts of thoughts of thoughts ad infinitum. Therefore, there cannot be thoughts of thoughts.” This is obviously invalid.

    Listen, my explanation of this is perfectly understandable. It incorporates the sign, the mode of signifying, and the thing signified. I'm very sorry that some strange idealism of a sort is keeping you from this elegance, and indirectly, meaningful language about God, but I don't think it'll ruin it for the rest of us. That's all I'll say now, you can have the last word and let the internet be the judge. Cheers, boss.

    Your explanation is certainly understandable, but incomplete, I think. After all, when you start making comparisons, then you start a process of analysis that involves division and composition. I honestly don’t understand why you think that (1) senses cannot refer to senses and (2) senses cannot be composed of sub-senses.

    With regards to (2), the sense Jack and Jill ran up the hill has the referent Jack and Jill ran up the hill, but it is also composed of sub-senses, such as Jack, Jill, running, up, the hill. You can look at each of these senses individually, which means that the original sense must have contained them in such a way that they could be brought out by analysis. I believe that Rank would say that they are virtually contained within it.

    Perhaps this is just a fundamental difference between us. I think that senses of compound referents are themselves compound linguistic and semantic entities that exist within the web of language and are about the compound entities. I would further argue that the sense of something metaphysically simple should also be metaphysically simple, but that’s a whole other matter. And if senses can be compound and sub-divided into sub-senses, then my argument follows. You have given no argument against compound senses, except that your account is understandable. And I agree, it is understandable, but it is incomplete and glosses over important details. It is understandable that rain falls from the clouds, but that does not make that account complete.

    Anyway, great dialogue, as always. I’m sure we’ll return to it at some point, maybe in November to celebrate our one year anniversary of starting this conversation!

    ReplyDelete
  87. P.S. Glenn,

    That was terrific-cheers to you as well-

    ReplyDelete
  88. Two things:

    First, it's obvious that Mr. Feser doesn't comment very often on these epic exchanges between dguller, rank and co. I know he's busy. But does he read them? There's enough material here to write an entire book.

    Second, I'm reading through TLS right now, and I came across Feser's analogy for goal directedness. The moon, lacking any consciousness or will, is still directed towards orbiting the Earth, as opposed to just shooting off into the cosmos. But perhaps this goal-directedness is just an illusion, from external forces (gravity) acting on its mass.

    ReplyDelete
  89. The moon, lacking any consciousness or will, is still directed towards orbiting the Earth, as opposed to just shooting off into the cosmos. But perhaps this goal-directedness is just an illusion, from external forces (gravity) acting on its mass.

    This makes the dire mechanistic mistake of reifying the abstract "laws of nature". Contrary to everything they teach you in school, these do not, in fact, exist. Gravity is only a "law" in the sense that it is part of the essence of many, many different things. Because it is in their essence, it is expressed as one of their numerous final causes.

    The other option is that only material and efficient causes exist, on which have been imposed certain physical laws. But this presupposes a "divine watchmaker". Certain contemporary scientists--like Hawking--take it a step further and deify the laws themselves. To quote, "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing." Now, not only are the laws imposed from the outside, they are prior to the universe itself.

    ReplyDelete
  90. ozero91,

    Second, I'm reading through TLS right now, and I came across Feser's analogy for goal directedness. The moon, lacking any consciousness or will, is still directed towards orbiting the Earth, as opposed to just shooting off into the cosmos. But perhaps this goal-directedness is just an illusion, from external forces (gravity) acting on its mass.

    As you finish reading the paragraph, you'll come to see that neither consciousness nor will are necessary ingredients for a thing's final cause, as well as the fact that our conscious thought processes "are really but a special case of the more general natural phenomena of goal-directedness, or final causality, which exists in the natural world in a way that is mostly totally divorced from any conscious mind or intelligence." (my emphasis)

    When you get to later paragraphs, you'll see that phenomena which "[are] mostly totally divorced from any conscious mind or intelligence" are not for that reason "purposeless, meaningless, goal-free causes and effects."

    And in still later paragraphs, you'll see why this is not the case.

    (I do claim to be an infallible prognosticator; of course not. So, when I say that 'you'll come to see', or that 'you'll see', I'm really simply saying that the opportunities to see said things are provided.)

    ReplyDelete
  91. The 'not' is not in the right place; sheesh.

    "...you'll see why this is the case.

    "(I do not claim to be..."

    ReplyDelete
  92. Regarding GG lagrange and the virtual distinction: there is also the issue of baroque and later thomism imposing terminology and ideas not found in Aquinas, or not clearly.

    Also, I've posted some brief remarks on Scotus' view of divine knowledge.

    http://lyfaber.blogspot.com/2012/09/scotus-on-divine-intellect-and-cognition.html

    ReplyDelete
  93. Rank:

    Then the first principles would change. You're just going to have to admit that you've gotten it wrong.

    No, they wouldn’t. If that were the case, then it would follow that the primary actuality changes once its potential secondary actuality is actualized. Since that is not true, then it also does not follow that if the potential conclusions contained within the first principles are actualized, then the first principles have to change. All that has to change is the transition from

    (1) Actual first principles plus potential conclusions

    To

    (2) Actual first principles plus actual conclusions

    Notice that from (1) to (2), the first principles remain the same.

    A "created power" actualizes conclusions that arise outside of the first principles, equivocally.

    I don’t understand what this is supposed to mean. You are arguing that the conclusions exist within the first principles in a virtual fashion, and now you are arguing that the conclusions exist “outside of the first principles”.

    Created power actualizes potentials that do not exist inside of the principles themselves, but outside of them. They exist outside because of the virtual distinction inside. That's all there is to it.

    This makes no sense to me. On the one hand, you have first principles with virtual conclusions within the first principles, and on the other hand, you have first principles with potential conclusions outside the first principles. So, now the distinction between virtuality and potency is that the former is within the first principles and the latter is outside the first principles. But how is that even possible? Where outside the first principles are the conclusions waiting to be actualized? And when we say that a ball has the potency to bounce, then is its bounciness outside the ball?

    ReplyDelete
  94. It has a power to cause health, which is not a potential inside of itself--this can be proven easily. If the medicine contained a potential to give health, then it would have to be actualized by something that possessed health actually, like with the white light and the prism. The prism has no light within itself, but it has the potential for light, which can be actualized by actual light. However, health itself does not exist inside things except virtually, which means that, if we collapse the distinction between virtual and potential, then the "healthy thing" that actualized the health-giving potential in the medicine would itself only have potential health. This means that we're left with an infinite regress of potential health-giving, and nothing that possesses it actually. Since you claim that even God's virtuality is potential, we cannot even appeal to an "Unhealed Healer" to grant health to the chain. We're left in absurdity.

    So, your argument is that if virtuality is potency, then there cannot possibly be a Pure Actuality, which contradicts the First Way. I fully understand that you are trying to perform a reductio here, but I still think that you need a principled distinction between virtuality and potency to make the reduction work. It seems that your distinction comes down to virtuality being inside X and potency being outside X. But what does this inside/outside distinction mean? What is the boundary that counts as distinguishing inside from outside, and vice versa? And I think that if you cannot make this distinction clearer, then your reduction fails, because virtuality ultimately is identical with potency.

    But the substantial forms contains all possibilities of the human virtually. If you replaced "virtual" with "potential", then substantial forms would contain potential, and they would change when a human actualized those potentials. This is impossible.

    If that was true, then the distinction between primary actuality and secondary actuality collapses, because the primary actuality necessarily contains the potentiality for the actualization of secondary actualities. Or, is the potentiality for the actualization of secondary actualities contained within the primary actuality virtually?

    So, you now have actuality, potency, and virtuality as the different kinds of being in reality. And virtuality is some kind of combination of actuality and potency, much like potency is some kind of combination of actuality and non-being. In other words, virtuality is an actual potency, i.e. a virtual F is actually in X as the potency to cause F under the right circumstances. It is like a secondary actuality, which is also an actual potency, which is why you earlier agreed that the primary and secondary actualities are a way to understand virtuality. So, a secondary actuality is virtually in the primary actuality.

    But it still doesn’t explain how potency to do F is outside of X whereas a virtual F is inside of X.

    ReplyDelete
  95. This is false. If F only contained virtual forms A and B, then it would necessarily be a different kind of actuality. Something contains virtual distinctions insofar as it is actual in a certain respect. If F contained only A and B and not C, then it could not be the same: it would have to be F1 instead of F. Note that virtual things do not change actual things--rather, actual things are necessarily connected to certain virtual traits.

    That is the point. The virtual forms contained within X are constitutive of X’s identity. Different virtual forms means different effects that a thing can cause, which means that it is a different thing from another thing that has different virtual forms within itself. So, if virtual forms are constitutive of the identity of X, then they must be a part of what it means to be X to begin with. And if that is true, then to say that God’s metaphysically simple essence contains a multiplicity of virtual forms means that God’s identity is constituted by the virtual forms that are contained within himself. Does that not contradict his metaphysical simplicity? If his identity depends upon the kinds of virtual forms contained within himself, then his identity is constituted by parts, and thus must be composite.

    And this fits into my wider point, i.e. why does virtual composition not count as the right kind of composition that would violate divine simplicity? I mean, divine simplicity is supposed to be the absence of all kinds of composition. To contain virtual composition means that his simplicity is relative and not absolute.

    Good luck coming up with a better system of causality.

    Just because I cannot come up with anything better does not mean that the system is flawless. Come up with something better than the equations of QM to predict the behavior of subatomic particles. You can’t? Oh, I guess it’s above reproach and criticism.

    In any case, the red light, as long as it is being projected through the prism, is indeed to some extent composed by the prism. It virtually contains light particles, however.

    But how is it composed by the prism? The prism is just a transmitter of the light. The light passes through it, and is not composed of it. That would be like saying that a fork in the road is part of the composition of the cars passing over the road.

    Its essence and existence are identical, which is to say that there is no distinction whatsoever between essence and existence in God.

    Right, but it has an essence.

    ReplyDelete
  96. Your problem, here, is that you're equivocating between different meanings of "exist". To say that something exists is to say that it has esse, which means that it is ontologically, mind-independently real. But not everything that has being has esse. This is true of logical beings, which rely on but are not conjoined with esse.

    First, I don’t think that distinction even matters. Everything is directly caused by esse subsistens to exist, nothing has any kind of existence that is dependent upon anything else. Would you say that accidents derive their existence from substances? Or does esse subsistens sustain both?

    Second, you are not answering my criticism at all. I want to know what a real distinction is. A real distinction must be different from both a virtual distinction and a logical distinction. The only way that I can make sense of this is that a real distinction between X and Y means that X can exist without Y. So, form is really distinct from matter, because immaterial forms can exist, and act is really distinct from potency, because pure actuality can exist. But, this concept does not work with the real distinction between essence and esse. All essences exist either in material things or in an immaterial intellect, and material and immaterial beings all depend upon esse to exist, which means that essence depends upon esse to exist. And that means that you cannot have essence without esse sustaining it in existence. Sure, that does not mean that what the essence is about actually exists, i.e. the essence of dogness versus an actual dog. But it does mean that it is impossible for esse to exist without essence (because either esse is conjoined to essence to make an ens, or esse is identical to essence to make esse subsistens, both of which require the connection between esse and essence), and it is impossible for essence to exist without esse (because all essences are contained within beings that have esse, and thus either have their esse directly from esse subsistens or indirectly via the beings that contain them).

    Third, when you write that “To say that something exists is to say that it has esse, which means that it is ontologically, mind-independently real” is false, because all things depend upon the divine intellect, and thus are not mind-independent at all. So, mind-independence cannot even be a part of the definition of “real distinction”, unless you mean independent of created minds. After all, in God’s mind, to have an essence is for that essence to exist in God’s mind as a virtual part of his metaphysically simple essence.

    Holistic. Emergent. Substantial. You know the drill--something that is whole and is not the sum of its parts. A human form is ontologically indivisible, but logically divisible, because we can consider its genera and so forth.

    First, a human form is not logically divisible. It is virtually divisible. In fact, I don’t even know what would count as logically divisible at all.

    Second, all substantial forms are defined by the virtual properties within them such that changing those virtual properties changes the substantial form entirely. As such, a substantial form is the sum of its virtual parts. And since virtual parts are the only kind of parts that a substance could possible have, it follows that holistic and substantial entities are the sum of their virtual parts.

    ReplyDelete
  97. You've imported reductionist notions from modern metaphysics. You're going to have to check them at the door.

    I don’t think so. You said that all parts within a substance must be virtual parts, because a substance is a holistic and emergent entity. That means that its parts cannot be real parts, because real parts are supposed to be ontologically divisible, which I took to mean that you can actually separate the parts from the whole in reality. Certainly, you can do this with the cells in the human body, and thus they cannot be virtual, but rather must be real. Otherwise, I have no idea what a virtual part versus a real part is supposed to be. I mean, are you really saying that we cannot really separate the cells from a human body? That it is all just a virtual process?

    If first principles are primary actualities, then they contain all possible secondary actualities and potentialities virtually. Otherwise, secondary actualities could not exist, because they would not have a cause that fit with the principle of proportionate causality.

    That’s interesting. Let’s look at it in detail a bit. Say you have a human child with the primary actuality of intellect, but they have not yet actualized the secondary actualization of abstracting essences. At some point, their brains will achieve a sufficient level of development to facilitate abstraction, and they will encounter a particular material being, and then proceed to abstract the nature of that particular material being by virtue of their active intellect. What is the actualizing cause here that turns the potential secondary actuality of abstraction of forms into the actual secondary actuality of abstraction of forms? It is not the primary actuality, because it has always been actual. Is it the physical development of the brain? But that can’t be the case, because nothing material can affect something immaterial. Is it the particular material being? Again, no, because nothing material can affect something immaterial. So, what is the actualizing agent here?

    I already defined absolute simplicity for you. Virtual distinction to not violate it.

    Where did you define “absolute simplicity”? I must have missed it.

    The brick house is composed of form and matter. The form is the plan of the house; the matter, in this case, would be the bricks. But the atoms inside the bricks are merely virtual. (I can't remember if I said in the past that the bricks were virtual; if I did, then I misspoke.) But, again, God is not composed in this way. He doesn't have anything in himself in the way that bricks are within a house. Rather, he himself is totally actual, and, as a result, virtually contains all other actual things. He is not composed of them in any way: one-way causation, remember.

    The brick house is technically an artifact, and not a substance, which means that it isn’t a great example. Let’s just stick to a biological organism composed of cells, which are composed of atoms. If the atoms in the cells are virtual, then the cells themselves should be virtual, too. And yet, cells are certainly real in the sense that they can actually be separated from the biological organism in reality, and not just in the intellect. You can physically scrape cells off an organism, or suck them out with a biopsy, or whatever, and achieve real separation.

    ReplyDelete
  98. Oh, and apropos of a previous conversation we had, I came across the following passages in Rocca’s book, which I have been reading to get a better sense of Aquinas on negative theology and analogy:

    “If to comprehend something is to contain and include it as a whole and wholly (totum et totalitier – CT 2.9.335-45), the no intellect can comprehend God … In the beautific vision the whole created intellect will see God, and the whole essence of God will be seen, but the vision will not take place in a fashion wholly comprehensive of God, since its mode of knowing will not be as perfect as God’s intrinsic knowability … for no finite power can extend its capacity in an intensively infinite manner into the boundless depths of the infinite God. But the paradox is one that stretches faith and reason to the limit: Infinity as such will be seen but never infinitely.” (Gregory P. Rocca, Speaking the Incomprehensible God: Thomas Aquinas on the Interplay of Positive and Negative Theology (CUA Press, 2004), p. 45).

    And

    “In the end, the paradox of a noncomprehensive yet quidditative knowledge of God is sui generis and resists the formation of illuminating comparisons. How the finite creature can finitely know the infinite being of God must remain as mysterious as the Infinite Mystery itself” (Ibid., p. 47).

    That seems pretty consistent with my position that there is a clear contradiction between the claim that a human being can know God’s essence in the beautific vision but not know God. After all, to know something is to contain its essence inside one’s intellect, and yet this is impossible to do with God. Even with divine intervention, to possess God’s essence in one’s intellect, is to possess God himself within one’s intellect, because his essence is his existence. And yet, even though God himself is within one’s intellect, one still does not have comprehensive knowledge of God. I mean, either God is fully inside a human’s intellect when his essence is therein, because of his divine simplicity, or God is not inside a human’s intellect at all, which means that one cannot know his essence in the beautific vision.

    ReplyDelete
  99. No, they wouldn’t. If that were the case, then it would follow that the primary actuality changes once its potential secondary actuality is actualized. Since that is not true, then it also does not follow that if the potential conclusions contained within the first principles are actualized, then the first principles have to change. All that has to change is the transition from

    (1) Actual first principles plus potential conclusions

    To

    (2) Actual first principles plus actual conclusions

    Notice that from (1) to (2), the first principles remain the same.


    This is not what Aquinas says. Remember: "In like manner, before it is drawn out of its demonstrative principles, the conclusion is pre-known virtually, although not actually, in its self-evident principles." The conclusion is contained virtually within the premise. This means that it is contained virtually in the primary actuality, in this situation. If virtuality is potentiality, then the premises contain potentiality. This means A) that they would change and B) that my reductio holds.

    Now, if you want to say that Aquinas actually means that the primary actuality can allow for change in the secondary actuality, then you must also make this concession for his discussion of God, in which he uses the same language. Further, even if we allow this, the virtual distinction remains necessary. For some primary actuality A to actualize a potentiality B, A must first be actual in a certain way that allows B. For instance, if the human form ("rational animal") is A, then it must be actual in certain ways for it to possess nutritive potentialities B. But A, of itself, does not clearly contain a power to actualize B. There is nothing in rationality nor in animality that tells us about B. Does it then follow that A, as the primary actuality of a human, does not contain the actualities necessary for a human to eat? Of course not. Nutritive powers are contained virtually within the vegetative soul, which is housed, in some sense, in the rational soul.

    I don’t understand what this is supposed to mean. You are arguing that the conclusions exist within the first principles in a virtual fashion, and now you are arguing that the conclusions exist “outside of the first principles”.

    If something is within a cause in a virtual way, then that cause has certain powers. It may actualize potentialities outside of itself. For instance, the human form contains all of the traits of a human virtually; otherwise, its union with prime matter would not be particularly fruitful. It does this without changing. Likewise, first principles do not change, even though they are the actuality--thanks to the virtual distinction--of other potentials outside of themselves.

    ReplyDelete
  100. This makes no sense to me. On the one hand, you have first principles with virtual conclusions within the first principles, and on the other hand, you have first principles with potential conclusions outside the first principles. So, now the distinction between virtuality and potency is that the former is within the first principles and the latter is outside the first principles. But how is that even possible? Where outside the first principles are the conclusions waiting to be actualized? And when we say that a ball has the potency to bounce, then is its bounciness outside the ball?

    There are different senses of pre-existence. As Aquinas says, "Now it is plain that the effect pre-exists virtually in the efficient cause: and although to pre-exist in the potentiality of a material cause is to pre-exist in a more imperfect way, since matter as such is imperfect, and an agent as such is perfect; still to pre-exist virtually in the efficient cause is to pre-exist not in a more imperfect, but in a more perfect way."

    So, in the case of the ball, it might be said that the dribbling hand contains bounciness virtually. Bounciness pre-exists potentially, but not virtually, in the ball itself; but it requires actualization by something that contains bounciness virtually--pre-existently in the efficient cause.

    In the case of the premises, I recommend these two stunningly in-depth commentaries from Aquinas on Aristotle:

    http://dhspriory.org/thomas/PostAnalytica.htm#2
    http://dhspriory.org/thomas/PostAnalytica.htm#3

    He explains how conclusions are pre-known virtually. He at one point uses the term "potency" to describe the process. However, if the premises literally contained the conclusions in potency, then an infinite regress would follow. The potency exists in the mind of the person themselves, then, but not in the principles.

    So, your argument is that if virtuality is potency, then there cannot possibly be a Pure Actuality, which contradicts the First Way. I fully understand that you are trying to perform a reductio here, but I still think that you need a principled distinction between virtuality and potency to make the reduction work. It seems that your distinction comes down to virtuality being inside X and potency being outside X. But what does this inside/outside distinction mean? What is the boundary that counts as distinguishing inside from outside, and vice versa? And I think that if you cannot make this distinction clearer, then your reduction fails, because virtuality ultimately is identical with potency.

    Actual existence: absolute existence.
    Potential existence: possible existence.
    Virtual existence: qualified existence.

    Again, if virtuality is potentiality, then nothing can be actual, including forms, first principles and the Unmoved Mover. All of these would require a further actuality, but such an actuality would not exist. It's kind of an inverted First Way: it cuts a hole in causality. Forms must have virtual features, as I described above, for secondary actualization to be possible.

    More later.

    ReplyDelete
  101. Rank:

    Further, even if we allow this, the virtual distinction remains necessary. For some primary actuality A to actualize a potentiality B, A must first be actual in a certain way that allows B. For instance, if the human form ("rational animal") is A, then it must be actual in certain ways for it to possess nutritive potentialities B. But A, of itself, does not clearly contain a power to actualize B. There is nothing in rationality nor in animality that tells us about B. Does it then follow that A, as the primary actuality of a human, does not contain the actualities necessary for a human to eat? Of course not. Nutritive powers are contained virtually within the vegetative soul, which is housed, in some sense, in the rational soul.

    If X has the primary actuality of “rational animal”, then they have the actual power to abstract forms from material beings, which would count as a secondary actuality. If they do not actually abstract forms from material beings, then the secondary actuality of abstraction of forms remains potential, and if they do actually abstract forms from material beings, then the secondary actuality of abstraction of forms is actual. It seems that on your account, the secondary actuality just is a virtuality within the primary actuality. And if that is the case, then how do you go from the virtual secondary actuality to the potential secondary actuality to the actual secondary actuality? Is there already a potential secondary actuality in addition to the virtual secondary actuality? If so, then where is it supposed to be?

    If something is within a cause in a virtual way, then that cause has certain powers. It may actualize potentialities outside of itself. For instance, the human form contains all of the traits of a human virtually; otherwise, its union with prime matter would not be particularly fruitful. It does this without changing. Likewise, first principles do not change, even though they are the actuality--thanks to the virtual distinction--of other potentials outside of themselves.

    But you didn’t answer where the potentialities are if they are outside of a particular being. If virtuality is within a being and potentiality is outside of a being, then we cannot say that an immobile ball is potentially a bouncing ball, because the potentiality is outside of the immobile ball. I don’t understand what this could mean. It was my understanding the potentiality is within a particular being, but now you’re saying that it is outside a particular being.

    So, in the case of the ball, it might be said that the dribbling hand contains bounciness virtually. Bounciness pre-exists potentially, but not virtually, in the ball itself; but it requires actualization by something that contains bounciness virtually--pre-existently in the efficient cause.

    I see. So, the hand is the efficient cause of the ball’s bouncing, which means that (a) the hand must contain bounciness virtually, and (b) the ball must contain bounciness potentially. When the hand actualizes the potential bounciness in the ball, the ball loses its potentiality of bounciness, because it is actually bouncing. However, the hand continues to contain bounciness virtually and unchanged, despite actualizing the potential bounciness in the ball. That’s quite helpful, but I’m now wondering how a virtual F in X can actualize a potential F in Y. After all, a virtual F is not an actual F, and only an actual F can actualize a potential F. I mean, a virtual F is a quasi-actual F, but is a quasi-actual F enough to actualize a potency, or does only an actual F have that ability? Furthermore, I can see how the actualization of the potential F in X essentially depends upon the virtual F in X, but I don’t see how the potentiality of F depends upon the virtuality of F, as you mentioned earlier, i.e. potentiality depends upon virtuality. It seems that the potentiality of F in Y does not depend upon the virtuality of F in X. Or, am I missing something here?

    ReplyDelete
  102. Actual existence: absolute existence.
    Potential existence: possible existence.
    Virtual existence: qualified existence.


    First, what is the difference between “absolute” and “qualified”?

    Second, it seems that only God as esse subsistens has absolute existence. Everything else depends upon God for its existence, and thus cannot be said to be “absolute”.

    Third, what is the qualifications involved in virtual existence? And are there no qualifications involved in absolute or possible existence?

    Again, if virtuality is potentiality, then nothing can be actual, including forms, first principles and the Unmoved Mover. All of these would require a further actuality, but such an actuality would not exist. It's kind of an inverted First Way: it cuts a hole in causality. Forms must have virtual features, as I described above, for secondary actualization to be possible.

    And for virtuality to be possible, there must be a principled distinction between it and the other kinds of existence.

    More later.

    Awesome-tastic.

    ReplyDelete
  103. If that was true, then the distinction between primary actuality and secondary actuality collapses, because the primary actuality necessarily contains the potentiality for the actualization of secondary actualities.

    Actually, it is only because it is true that secondary actuality is capable of existing. The human form has a variety of powers regardless of their status in secondary actuality. If these powers were not actually/virtually in the form, then they would be potentially within the form, which means that they would have to be actualized by something else before they could appear as secondary actuality. But if they were actualized by something else, then the form itself would change, and the human's identity would be destroyed. The only answer is that they are actually/virtually within the form and potentially manifested outside of it via secondary actuality.

    Or, is the potentiality for the actualization of secondary actualities contained within the primary actuality virtually?

    It's more like the potentiality exists because of prime matter, to which an actual form with numerous virtual traits is joined. Prime matter has no traits on its own; it is undifferentiated. It requires the virtual/actual traits of a substantial form to be anything at all. This means that the virtual traits we keep discussing cannot be contained in potentiality of itself, but must in some sense be within actuality. "Potentiality" (unlike prime matter) is always a potentiality for something, and for this determinate-ness it requires form. We cannot relocate virtual traits to potentiality without wiping out those traits entirely via infinite regress.

    So, you now have actuality, potency, and virtuality as the different kinds of being in reality. And virtuality is some kind of combination of actuality and potency, much like potency is some kind of combination of actuality and non-being. In other words, virtuality is an actual potency, i.e. a virtual F is actually in X as the potency to cause F under the right circumstances.

    This isn't too shabby of a description, in some ways. But it's not entirely right, because it neglects the fact that virtual traits really do exist within things. They are not just powers to cause X; and, if they were, then they could not cause X, because, for X to be caused, some cause Y must possess X in some semi-actual way. Otherwise, the principle of proportionate causality is violated.

    ReplyDelete
  104. It is like a secondary actuality, which is also an actual potency, which is why you earlier agreed that the primary and secondary actualities are a way to understand virtuality. So, a secondary actuality is virtually in the primary actuality.

    Seems like you're getting the hang of it.

    But it still doesn’t explain how potency to do F is outside of X whereas a virtual F is inside of X.

    This relates to Aristotle's understanding of "active power", by which a cause induces an effect in something else. It's the ninth category. A couple of quotes from Aquinas on this, regarding God's power:

    "Now, from this it is clear that God is powerful, and that active power is fittingly attributed to Him.

    For active power is the principle of acting upon another, as such. But it is proper to God to be the source of being to other things. Therefore, it pertains to Him to be powerful."

    He goes on to argue that God's power is identical to his other attributes. Then he explains how God's power, which is a category, is to be understood.

    "But, since nothing is its own principle, and God’s action is not other than His power, it is clear from the foregoing that power is attributed to God, not as principle of action, but as principle of the thing made. And since power implies relation to something else as having the character of a principle (for active power is the principle of acting on something else, as Aristotle says in Metaphysics V [12]), it is evident that power is in truth attributed to God in relation to things made, not in relation to action, except according to our way of understanding, namely, so far as our intellect considers both God’s power and His action through diverse conceptions."

    What this means is that God is not really in the categories, except logically, but that creation involves our relation to God and not vice versa.

    Basically, active power allows the transition from one actual agent to an outside potentiality. God can be understood in somewhat similar terms, although it would be a mistake to think that he was really within the ten categories. We relate to him through the ten categories; not the other way around.

    The virtual forms contained within X are constitutive of X’s identity.

    It is not a two-way relationship. There is a logically necessary connection between an actuality and its virtual traits, but to say that the virtual traits determine the actuality is to put the horse before the carriage. A virtual trait is nothing other than something entailed by a certain kind of actuality. The human form necessarily contains the virtual distinction "living thing", but the human form itself determines this and not the other way around. The distinction "living thing" does not exist except as an abstraction from concrete forms, to which it is necessarily tied. A human is a living thing because it is a rational animal; it is not a rational animal because it is a living thing.

    Similarly, in Aquinas's time, one would not have said that the element "fire" was determined by the various fiery things that it contained virtually. These things are entailed by fire's purity; fire's purity is not determined by that which it entails. Otherwise, we have a vicious circle, in which fire's purity is determined by the things that are entailed by fire's purity, which is determined by those things. The entailments come to be their own determinations, and we are left with Wippel's "just because" definition of virtuality.

    More later.

    ReplyDelete
  105. I mean, divine simplicity is supposed to be the absence of all kinds of composition. To contain virtual composition means that his simplicity is relative and not absolute.

    Esse commune--the abstract esse--is absolutely simple. Why? Because it is above all forms of real, ontological composition. Yet it is still virtually distinct, insofar as the interconvertibility of the transcendentals holds, and insofar as these transcendentals are the exemplars of their variety of participants. But esse commune's composition is only knowable logically, and not really, because it is too fundamental to be broken into parts. God works in a similar way, with the usual caveats.

    But how is it composed by the prism? The prism is just a transmitter of the light. The light passes through it, and is not composed of it. That would be like saying that a fork in the road is part of the composition of the cars passing over the road.

    The four causes are applied to countless things that are less intuitive than Prof. Feser's rubber ball example. Aquinas describes thought, will and so forth in terms of the four causes, and it can get pretty hard to follow. This does not tell us that the four causes are false.

    In any case, the prism is the material cause because it is the potentiality that has been actualized by the efficient cause. White light joins with the prism to create red light, which has its own formal and final causes. The red light is "made out of" the prism in the sense that it is consituted by a union of the prism and the white light--potentiality and actuality. Similarly, when I type this message, my fingers are the efficient causes and the keys themselves are the material causes, creating electrical impulses that possess their own formal and final causes. I barely even remember why we're arguing about prisms, though, so let's just drop this part.

    First, I don’t think that distinction even matters.

    Then I'm pretty sure that you don't understand it. Again, I recommend David Oderberg's practical discussion of essence and existence from 121-151 of Real Essentialism.

    Everything is directly caused by esse subsistens to exist, nothing has any kind of existence that is dependent upon anything else. Would you say that accidents derive their existence from substances? Or does esse subsistens sustain both?

    Esse subsistens sustains accidents, because accidents have esse. They are mind-independently real. But esse subsistens only sustains logical beings indirectly, because they have no esse at all. This is my understanding of the system.

    Second, you are not answering my criticism at all. I want to know what a real distinction is.

    http://books.google.com/books?id=tIhbUIyYLHYC&pg=PA121&lpg=PA121&dq=real+essentialism+essence+and+existence&source=bl&ots=wd2D0_SLHM&sig=qFGuB5JPRWTX6vWf7hDSOF43Op8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RiVjULNLyKTJAdmZgZAK&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=real%20essentialism%20essence%20and%20existence&f=false

    121-130. That whole section shows up for me in Google Books--I hope it works for you, too.

    Third, when you write that “To say that something exists is to say that it has esse, which means that it is ontologically, mind-independently real” is false, because all things depend upon the divine intellect, and thus are not mind-independent at all.

    The divine intellect is only analogically similar to ours. Regardless, this is just bickering over semantics.

    ReplyDelete
  106. First, a human form is not logically divisible. It is virtually divisible. In fact, I don’t even know what would count as logically divisible at all.

    It is virtually divisible, but the division happens logically and not really. That's all I was saying. And a purely logical division would be based on a purely logical being, such as evil.

    Second, all substantial forms are defined by the virtual properties within them such that changing those virtual properties changes the substantial form entirely. As such, a substantial form is the sum of its virtual parts. And since virtual parts are the only kind of parts that a substance could possible have, it follows that holistic and substantial entities are the sum of their virtual parts.

    As above, a human is alive because it is a human; it is not a human because it is alive.

    That means that its parts cannot be real parts, because real parts are supposed to be ontologically divisible, which I took to mean that you can actually separate the parts from the whole in reality.

    That isn't what it means, per Oderberg.

    Certainly, you can do this with the cells in the human body, and thus they cannot be virtual, but rather must be real. Otherwise, I have no idea what a virtual part versus a real part is supposed to be. I mean, are you really saying that we cannot really separate the cells from a human body? That it is all just a virtual process?

    A human contains cells because it is a human; it is not a human because it contains cells. This is somewhat different from the examples with forms, first principles and God, because a human is combination of form and matter, whereas the others are not. Regardless, when we discuss the cells of the human, we are discussing the cells of the human. We are not discussing the human itself.

    Say you have a human child with the primary actuality of intellect, but they have not yet actualized the secondary actualization of abstracting essences.

    Intellect is a power that stems from the primary actuality. It cannot be destroyed, since it's immaterial; but it is still not the primary actuality itself.

    Where did you define “absolute simplicity”? I must have missed it.

    Again: God is not composed of act and potency, nor form and matter, nor is he in the ten categories, nor is he a hybrid of essence and existence. As these are the only available ontological categories through which he could be composite, he is absolutely simple.

    You can physically scrape cells off an organism, or suck them out with a biopsy, or whatever, and achieve real separation.

    This is due to the organism's composition of actuality and potentiality. "Virtual" does not mean entirely the same thing in this case, although it is similar.

    ReplyDelete
  107. In the beautific vision the whole created intellect will see God, and the whole essence of God will be seen, but the vision will not take place in a fashion wholly comprehensive of God, since its mode of knowing will not be as perfect as God’s intrinsic knowability … for no finite power can extend its capacity in an intensively infinite manner into the boundless depths of the infinite God.

    This is not a paradox, but rather the core of any even remotely worthwhile eschatology. Let me quote a few passages from Aquinas, followed by some from Hart.

    Aquinas:

    "Therefore no created intellect in seeing God can know all that God does or can do, for this would be to comprehend His power; but of what God does or can do any intellect can know the more, the more perfectly it sees God."

    "Everything is knowable according to its actuality. But God, whose being is infinite, as was shown above is infinitely knowable. Now no created intellect can know God infinitely. For the created intellect knows the Divine essence more or less perfectly in proportion as it receives a greater or lesser light of glory. Since therefore the created light of glory received into any created intellect cannot be infinite, it is clearly impossible for any created intellect to know God in an infinite degree. Hence it is impossible that it should comprehend God."

    "Therefore he who sees God's essence, sees in Him that He exists infinitely, and is infinitely knowable; nevertheless, this infinite mode does not extend to enable the knower to know infinitely; thus, for instance, a person can have a probable opinion that a proposition is demonstrable, although he himself does not know it as demonstrated."

    "We understand one thing only when we understand by one idea; but many things understood by one idea are understood simultaneously, as in the idea of a man we understand "animal" and "rational"; and in the idea of a house we understand the wall and the roof."

    "Hence the intellect which has more of the light of glory will see God the more perfectly; and he will have a fuller participation of the light of glory who has more charity; because where there is the greater charity, there is the more desire; and desire in a certain degree makes the one desiring apt and prepared to receive the object desired. Hence he who possesses the more charity, will see God the more perfectly, and will be the more beatified."

    ReplyDelete
  108. Hart:

    "To answer these problems we need to consider the distinctively Christian understanding of the infinite--to which end I now turn to the first (and still the greatest) Christian thinker of divine infinity, Gregory of Nyssa. For Gregory God is to be understood first as [deleted Greek characters], an unanticipated beauty, longed for but without certain hope, and so evoking desperation: a God "seen" only by the infinite inflaming of desire, whose savor draws one on into ever greater dimensions of his glory, so that one is always at the beginning of one's pilgrimage toward him, always discovering and entering into greater dimensions of his beauty."

    "God's transcendence is not absence, that is, but an actual excessiveness; it is, from the side of the contingent, the impossibility of the finite ever coming to contain or exhaust the infinite; the soul must participate in it successively or endlessly traverse it, "outstretched" by a desire without surcease, an "infinition" of love; but God pervades all things, and all is present to his infinite life. Because the difference between God and creation is not a simple metaphysical distinction between reality and appearance, but the analogical distance between two ways of apprehending the infinite--God being the infinite, creatures embracing it in an endless sequence of finite instances--the soul's ascent to God is not a departure from, but an endless venture into, difference."

    "Gregory's great exemplar of the virtuous soul is Moses: though he is filled to overflowing, says Gregory, he always thirsts for more of God's beauty, 'not according to his own capacity, but according to God's real being'; and such is the action of every soul that loves beauty: drawn on forever by a desire enkindled always anewby the beauty that lies beyond the beauty already possessed, receiving the visible as an image of God's transcendent loveliness, but longing all the more to enjoy that beauty face-to-face, the soul experiences ceaseless delight precisely in that its desire can no know final satiety. As God is infinite, while evil's nothingness lies 'outside' the infinite altogether, desire for the good can expand forever without passage through negation; and so the true vision of God is never to arrive at desire's end."

    "Gregory likens the soul partaking of divine blessings to a vessel endlessly expanding as it receives what flows into it inexhaustibly; participation in the good, he says, makes the participant ever more capacious and receptive of beauty, for it is a growth into the goods of which God is the fount; so no limit can be set, either to what the soul pursues or to the soul's ascent."

    ReplyDelete
  109. A couple more from Aquinas:

    "The capacity of a creature is predicated on the potency of reception which it has. Now the potency of a creature to receive is of two kinds. One is natural; and this can be entirely fulfilled, because it extends only to natural perfections. The other is obediential potency, inasmuch as it can receive something from God; and such a capacity cannot be filled, because whatever God does with a creature, it still remains in potency to receive from God. Now a measure which increases when goodness increases is determined by the amount of perfection received rather than by that of the capacity to receive."

    "Even though the charity or grace of a wayfarer can increase to infinity, it can never arrive at equality with the grace of Christ. That something finite can by a continuous increase attain to any finite degree however great, is true if the same sort of quantity is referred to in both of the finite factors (for example, if we compare a line to a line or whiteness to whiteness), but not if different sorts of quantity are referred to. This is evident in dimensive quantity; for no matter how much a line is increased in length, it will never reach the width of a surface.

    The same likewise appears in virtual or intensive quantity; for no matter how much the knowledge of one who knows God by a likeness may advance, it can never equal the knowledge of a possessor, who sees God through His essence. Similarly the charity of a wayfarer cannot equal the charity of a possessor; for a person is,differently affected toward things which are present and toward those which are absent. In like manner also, however much the grace of a man who possesses grace in the line of a particular participation may increase, it can never equal the grace of Christ, which is full in every respect."

    As you can see, Hart and Aquinas speak in pretty much the same language here, which is common to nearly all Christian classical theism. There is no paradox here.

    ReplyDelete
  110. Rank:

    Actually, it is only because it is true that secondary actuality is capable of existing. The human form has a variety of powers regardless of their status in secondary actuality. If these powers were not actually/virtually in the form, then they would be potentially within the form, which means that they would have to be actualized by something else before they could appear as secondary actuality. But if they were actualized by something else, then the form itself would change, and the human's identity would be destroyed. The only answer is that they are actually/virtually within the form and potentially manifested outside of it via secondary actuality.

    So, then is the primary actuality must be a combination of actuality and virtuality, because the primary actuality, as an actual power, must actually exist, and the power contains the potentiality to do X. However, as you wrote, a potentiality cannot exist within an actuality, because then once the potentiality has been actualized, then the actuality will be different. So, the potentiality must exist virtually within the actuality. In other words, a primary actuality virtually contains a secondary actuality X that is quasi-actual within the primary actuality, and the quasi-actual X is then given to something else that has the potential for X to occur. That is how potentiality can exist outside the efficient cause, and how saying that an efficient cause has the potential to cause an effect is not technically talking about potency, but instead talking about virtuality within the efficient cause.

    To further this examination, the next obvious question is how the virtual X in actual being A is given to actual being B with the potential for X such that X is no longer potential, but becomes actualized. What exactly is given? It is not X, because X remains the same in A and B, except in its mode of being, i.e. X is virtual in A and X is potential in B. So, it seems that what is given is actual existence, i.e. esse. That means that the virtual X has esse in two senses, (1) that to be an actual virtual X, it must have esse, and (2) that to be an efficient cause that actualizes a potency, the virtual X in A must have esse to give to the potential X in B. If this is correct, then it follows that what is given is not any kind of X, but only esse itself.

    It's more like the potentiality exists because of prime matter, to which an actual form with numerous virtual traits is joined. Prime matter has no traits on its own; it is undifferentiated. It requires the virtual/actual traits of a substantial form to be anything at all. This means that the virtual traits we keep discussing cannot be contained in potentiality of itself, but must in some sense be within actuality. "Potentiality" (unlike prime matter) is always a potentiality for something, and for this determinate-ness it requires form. We cannot relocate virtual traits to potentiality without wiping out those traits entirely via infinite regress.

    Prime matter must have some kind of differentiating features, because it must exist as an idea in God’s intellect in order to have any kind of reality at all. If it had no differentiating features, then how could God have an idea of it in his intellect? It would have to be distinguishable from his other virtual ideas after all, and if it is distinguishable in his mind, then it must have distinguishing features. And if it has no distinguishing features, then how can you say that God has an idea of prime matter at all?

    ReplyDelete
  111. This isn't too shabby of a description, in some ways. But it's not entirely right, because it neglects the fact that virtual traits really do exist within things. They are not just powers to cause X; and, if they were, then they could not cause X, because, for X to be caused, some cause Y must possess X in some semi-actual way. Otherwise, the principle of proportionate causality is violated.

    First, I don’t think it neglects that fact. I specifically said that a virtual form is “an actual potency”, and thus really does exist within things.

    Second, you raise an interesting point. There is a transition from

    (1) Being A containing a virtual F PLUS being B containing a potential F

    To

    (2) Being A containing a virtual F PLUS being B containing an actual F

    According to this schema, A remains exactly the same from (1) to (2) and thus there is absolutely no change in A at all. And yet, somehow A is the efficient cause of B’s transition from potential F to actual F. What makes this happen? Does A change somehow? Does A have an infinite amount of esse that it can share with any B that shares an F with A? Also, does (1) necessarily always lead to (2)? What facilitates the transition? What inhibits the transition? And how would something facilitate or inhibit the transition from (1) to (2)?

    It is not a two-way relationship. There is a logically necessary connection between an actuality and its virtual traits, but to say that the virtual traits determine the actuality is to put the horse before the carriage.

    If the virtual traits do not determine the being, then what does? What determines what X is would be X’s substantial form, and X’s substantial form just is composed of multiple virtual effects that it could cause, because what something is is what something does (or, at least, could do). If you drain the substantial form of X of all its virtual effects, then what is left to help you understand what X is supposed to be?

    A virtual trait is nothing other than something entailed by a certain kind of actuality. The human form necessarily contains the virtual distinction "living thing", but the human form itself determines this and not the other way around. The distinction "living thing" does not exist except as an abstraction from concrete forms, to which it is necessarily tied.

    A human is a living thing because it is a rational animal; it is not a rational animal because it is a living thing.

    But it would not be a rational animal unless it was a living thing. In other words, it would not be an animal, of any kind, at all unless it was a living thing. It seems to be, in fact, a “two-way relationship”. Otherwise, it would be like saying that a drop of water is H2O, because it is water, but it is not water, because it is H2O. They are just different senses of the same referent, and ultimately mean the same thing. Jack is a bachelor because he is an unmarried male, but he is not an unmarried male because he is a bachelor. See?

    ReplyDelete
  112. Esse commune--the abstract esse--is absolutely simple. Why? Because it is above all forms of real, ontological composition. Yet it is still virtually distinct, insofar as the interconvertibility of the transcendentals holds, and insofar as these transcendentals are the exemplars of their variety of participants. But esse commune's composition is only knowable logically, and not really, because it is too fundamental to be broken into parts. God works in a similar way, with the usual caveats.

    First, this just complicates the account. A logical distinction is a distinction made by the mind that has no real composition in reality. A real distinction is a distinction made by the mind that has real composition in reality. A virtual distinction is neither a logical distinction nor a real distinction. What does that mean? The distinction made by the mind has neither real composition in reality nor unreal composition in reality. This seems completely contradictory, but the contradiction is resolved, because the distinction is “grounded in reality”. How can a distinction between X and Y be grounded in reality and yet there is no real distinction between X and Y? The account seems to become circular. “Grounded in reality” just means “virtual” and “really distinct” just means “real”.

    Second, you are saying that esse commune is “absolutely simple” and yet “virtually distinct”. My question was why virtual distinction does not count as a kind of composition. Your answer is that there is a list of what counts as composition, and virtual composition just isn’t on the list. The question is why it is not on the list of a kind of composition. It clearly is a kind of composition, i.e. the virtual kind of composition, and yet it doesn’t count. It seems that the only explanation is that God is absolutely simple in the sense of there being no real composition. And that means that we need a definition of “real composition” versus “virtual composition”.

    ReplyDelete
  113. If X has the primary actuality of “rational animal”, then they have the actual power to abstract forms from material beings, which would count as a secondary actuality. If they do not actually abstract forms from material beings, then the secondary actuality of abstraction of forms remains potential, and if they do actually abstract forms from material beings, then the secondary actuality of abstraction of forms is actual. It seems that on your account, the secondary actuality just is a virtuality within the primary actuality. And if that is the case, then how do you go from the virtual secondary actuality to the potential secondary actuality to the actual secondary actuality? Is there already a potential secondary actuality in addition to the virtual secondary actuality? If so, then where is it supposed to be?

    Again, the secondary actualities and potentialities rely on the virtual attributes of the primary actuality, but they are not themselves within the primary actuality in an absolute way. The primary actuality actualizes them "outside", as when form unites with prime matter to create a substance. The form does not change: it merely informs potentiality toward certain determinate effects.

    I’m now wondering how a virtual F in X can actualize a potential F in Y. After all, a virtual F is not an actual F, and only an actual F can actualize a potential F. I mean, a virtual F is a quasi-actual F, but is a quasi-actual F enough to actualize a potency, or does only an actual F have that ability?

    This is the place where it's important to remember that virtual distinctions are not real, even though they are based on something real. Only an actual F (F1) has the ability to actualize a potential F (F2) in Y. "Quasi-actual" Fs (F3) are merely different ways of looking at or highlighting aspects of F1 that are otherwise indistinct from the whole.

    Again, a hand is able to bounce a ball because it is a hand: this is one of its virtual traits. However, this is not constitutive of a hand, because a hand is not determined by its ball-bouncing trait. Rather, hands qua hands can bounce balls for no other reason than that they are hands. We can highlight the ball-bouncing virtual trait--making explicit what was implicit--, but this does not reveal a structure within the hand. It only illustrates some pre-existent virtuality of the hand qua hand that can be manifested as a power. God is the highest in "being", so to speak, and he is capable of creating everything merely because of this fact. Likewise, pure fire is capable of creating many other, lesser fires merely because it is pure fire. If we look at it logically, we can place pre-existent virtual traits within the fire itself; but this is merely the act of highlighting something implicit and undifferentiated within pure fire itself.

    In technical terms, F3 exists if and only if F1 is actual in way Z, and F2 can be actualized by F1 if and only if F1 is Z. If F1 is not Z, then F3 does not exist and F2 cannot be actualized. F3 is wholly determined by F1--it does not exist unless F1 is Z--, but F2 cannot be actualized without F3, through which F1 qua Z manifests power M. F3 is not itself M; rather, it pre-exists within F1 qua Z, prior to any use of M. We understand M through F3, but F3 is not really distinct from F1 qua Z. Rather, the distinction is based on reality but is not in reality itself.

    ReplyDelete
  114. First, what is the difference between “absolute” and “qualified”?

    Second, it seems that only God as esse subsistens has absolute existence. Everything else depends upon God for its existence, and thus cannot be said to be “absolute”.


    The difference between absolute and qualified should be clearer now. Also, anything with esse has absolute existence, in the sense that it is A) actual and B) ontologically real. (Note that potentiality, I believe, is ontologically real; but it is not actual.) This is what I, following Aquinas, mean by "absolute" here.

    So, then is the primary actuality must be a combination of actuality and virtuality, because the primary actuality, as an actual power, must actually exist, and the power contains the potentiality to do X.

    This is close. The primary actuality is not a combination of anything, because its virtual traits are totally determined by its type of actuality. It is through the virtual traits that powers may be understood as pre-existent. Further, primary actuality is not a power, although it is capable of manifesting powers qua primary actuality. These powers pre-exist virtually.

    So, the potentiality must exist virtually within the actuality. In other words, a primary actuality virtually contains a secondary actuality X that is quasi-actual within the primary actuality, and the quasi-actual X is then given to something else that has the potential for X to occur. That is how potentiality can exist outside the efficient cause, and how saying that an efficient cause has the potential to cause an effect is not technically talking about potency, but instead talking about virtuality within the efficient cause.

    Seems pretty much dead-on.

    To further this examination, the next obvious question is how the virtual X in actual being A is given to actual being B with the potential for X such that X is no longer potential, but becomes actualized. What exactly is given? It is not X, because X remains the same in A and B, except in its mode of being, i.e. X is virtual in A and X is potential in B.

    A reduces potential X to actual X in B through categories nine (acting-upon) and ten (being-acted-upon). It is not necessary that A lose part of itself in the process; only that A has the power to act upon some potential X such that X becomes actual.

    Critically, God's creation does not work this way. Because creation is not a change, it does not involve the ninth and tenth categories, but only the fourth one: relation. As Aquinas writes, "Wherefore creation does not denote an approach to being, nor a change effected by the Creator, but merely a beginning of existence, and a relation to the Creator from whom the creature receives its being. Consequently creation is really nothing but a relation of the creature to the Creator together with a beginning of existence."

    ReplyDelete
  115. Prime matter must have some kind of differentiating features, because it must exist as an idea in God’s intellect in order to have any kind of reality at all. If it had no differentiating features, then how could God have an idea of it in his intellect? It would have to be distinguishable from his other virtual ideas after all, and if it is distinguishable in his mind, then it must have distinguishing features. And if it has no distinguishing features, then how can you say that God has an idea of prime matter at all?

    I'm not incredibly well-versed on God's relationship to prime matter, so I'm going to defer on this point.

    According to this schema, A remains exactly the same from (1) to (2) and thus there is absolutely no change in A at all. And yet, somehow A is the efficient cause of B’s transition from potential F to actual F. What makes this happen? Does A change somehow?

    A does change, but it is not necessarily in the same way that it changes B. The Unmoved Mover is the ultimate source of change, in that any per se causal series must terminate in pure actuality. However, certain traits arise "spontaneously" from actualities, and need not be reduced directly to the Unmoved Mover. For example, the soul is itself a mover, and the Unmoved Mover does not exert some kind of deterministic control over it. However, the soul itself changes, as Oderberg has written against Kenny, in that it is affected by exterior objects, desires and suchlike. In this way, a per se causal series obtains, even though the emergent, spontaneous properties of the soul do not need to be reduced. As a result, we can say that A changes B without directly reducing power X in A to a further mover Y. Rather, Y changes A in one way, while A changes B in another. For example, my monitor cord is plugged into my monitor, and this allows my monitor to manifest certain other "spontaneous" powers that are not directly reducible to the monitor cord. However, were the monitor cord to be unplugged, my monitor would still lose all of these powers. In a similar example, quantum events (like radioactive decay) that certain people like to call "uncaused" are in fact caused, but the traits themselves are spontaneous and may be only indirectly reducible to a further cause.

    If the virtual traits do not determine the being, then what does? What determines what X is would be X’s substantial form, and X’s substantial form just is composed of multiple virtual effects that it could cause, because what something is is what something does (or, at least, could do). If you drain the substantial form of X of all its virtual effects, then what is left to help you understand what X is supposed to be?

    Again, you've gotten it backwards. The substantial form contains virtual powers, but its actuality in way Z wholly determines all of them.

    But it would not be a rational animal unless it was a living thing.

    "Living thing" is an abstraction from concrete species. It does not exist of itself.

    ReplyDelete
  116. Otherwise, it would be like saying that a drop of water is H2O, because it is water, but it is not water, because it is H2O.

    This is a completely different situation, because H2O is the chemical constituent that makes water water. It is its substantial form--its concrete species. In the case of "living thing", there is no such thing in reality (as discussed a few comboxes ago); it is merely a virtual abstraction from the concrete particular.

    This seems completely contradictory, but the contradiction is resolved, because the distinction is “grounded in reality”. How can a distinction between X and Y be grounded in reality and yet there is no real distinction between X and Y?

    This should be resolved in my technical discussion above.

    Your answer is that there is a list of what counts as composition, and virtual composition just isn’t on the list. The question is why it is not on the list of a kind of composition. It clearly is a kind of composition, i.e. the virtual kind of composition, and yet it doesn’t count. It seems that the only explanation is that God is absolutely simple in the sense of there being no real composition. And that means that we need a definition of “real composition” versus “virtual composition”.

    God qua God is totally actual being itself, and for this reason alone all things virtually pre-exist within him.

    ReplyDelete
  117. Rank:

    Again, the secondary actualities and potentialities rely on the virtual attributes of the primary actuality, but they are not themselves within the primary actuality in an absolute way. The primary actuality actualizes them "outside", as when form unites with prime matter to create a substance. The form does not change: it merely informs potentiality toward certain determinate effects.

    It seems that a human being is a complex entity with multiple parts, including various primary actualities, which necessarily are actual, and various secondary actualities, which are either actual or potential. But this doesn’t help the issue of how the primary actuality actually actualizes a potential secondary actuality. It already has the esse that it can give to the potential secondary actuality to actualize it, and they are both present within the entity in question, and so what is stopping the actualization from occurring?

    This is the place where it's important to remember that virtual distinctions are not real, even though they are based on something real. Only an actual F (F1) has the ability to actualize a potential F (F2) in Y. "Quasi-actual" Fs (F3) are merely different ways of looking at or highlighting aspects of F1 that are otherwise indistinct from the whole.

    But this is where this account starts to break down for me. How can a distinction be “based on something real”, but “not real”? How can there be “different ways” to look at F1 if F1 is really “indistinct”? Different ways implies distinction, and if there is no real distinction, then there is no real difference, either, and so what exactly is going on here? Again, we need a good definition of a “real distinction”.

    We can highlight the ball-bouncing virtual trait--making explicit what was implicit--, but this does not reveal a structure within the hand. It only illustrates some pre-existent virtuality of the hand qua hand that can be manifested as a power.

    How can you say that the pre-existent virtual powers of the hand “do not reveal a structure within the hand”? The multiple pre-existent virtual powers are the structure, no?

    In technical terms, F3 exists if and only if F1 is actual in way Z, and F2 can be actualized by F1 if and only if F1 is Z. If F1 is not Z, then F3 does not exist and F2 cannot be actualized. F3 is wholly determined by F1--it does not exist unless F1 is Z--, but F2 cannot be actualized without F3, through which F1 qua Z manifests power M. F3 is not itself M; rather, it pre-exists within F1 qua Z, prior to any use of M. We understand M through F3, but F3 is not really distinct from F1 qua Z. Rather, the distinction is based on reality but is not in reality itself.

    First, are you saying that actual state Z is what causes the transition from quasi-actual F (i.e. F3) to actual F (i.e. F1)? If so, does that change the definition of “change”? After all, “change” originally meant potential F to actual F, but now it has a broader meaning of either quasi-actual F or potential F to actual F. And if the definition has been revised, then since God makes the transition from quasi-actual F to actual F when he creates ex nihilo, then does that mean that change is applicable to God?

    ReplyDelete
  118. Second, does the rule that for potency to change to act there must be some other actual agent to cause the change also apply to the transition from quasi-actual to actual? It seems that to make the change from quasi-actual F to actual F, you require an outside actual Z. How would that apply to God’s changing his pre-existent and quasi-actual F into an actual F? There is no other actual agent to make the transition, because God is subsistent Being itself, and so it would have to be caused by God. But God is not an other actual agent that acts upon the quasi-actual F within himself, because the quasi-actual F is God himself, because he is metaphysically simple. So, it seems that it is impossible for the transition from quasi-act to act to occur within God, if the rule of transition requiring an other actual agent holds true. And if that rule does not hold true, then why do you need a Z at all in your account? It becomes completely redundant.

    Third, if you remove all F3’s from M, then what do you have left? It seems that without the F3’s, M is empty, and thus the constitution of M necessarily consists of the various F3’s within it. As you said, to change the F3’s is to change M into M1 (or something). Or maybe you have another definition of what it means to say that X is constituted by Y?

    The difference between absolute and qualified should be clearer now.

    Not quite there yet.

    Also, anything with esse has absolute existence, in the sense that it is A) actual and B) ontologically real. (Note that potentiality, I believe, is ontologically real; but it is not actual.) This is what I, following Aquinas, mean by "absolute" here.

    Okay, I see. “Absolute” existence = actual and real existence, and qualified existence = not-actual and real existence. But I still don’t know where a real distinction fits in here. Is a real distinction an absolute distinction, or a qualified distinction? Also, I’m not too clear about logical distinctions. Can you give an example of a distinction in the mind that has no referent to anything outside the mind?

    This is close. The primary actuality is not a combination of anything, because its virtual traits are totally determined by its type of actuality. It is through the virtual traits that powers may be understood as pre-existent. Further, primary actuality is not a power, although it is capable of manifesting powers qua primary actuality. These powers pre-exist virtually.

    Is there no distinction between the actual primary actuality and its pre-existent and virtual traits? If you answer “yes”, then you cannot argue that the primary actuality is not constituted by its virtual traits, because you admit that there is no distinction between them at all, and thus they both refer to the same thing. If you answer “no”, then there is a distinction between the actual primary actuality and its pre-existent and virtual traits, but are then stuck with the problem of how to explain how different virtual traits can still result in the same primary actuality, which you yourself conceded made no sense.

    Also, are you saying that it is possible for there to be an actualized primary actuality that is not a power? Any examples of this? After all, a power is just a teleological directedness towards actualizing specific potentialities (i.e. secondary actualities). For your position to make sense, you would have to present an instance where a primary actuality is not directed towards actualizing potential secondary actualities.

    ReplyDelete
  119. A reduces potential X to actual X in B through categories nine (acting-upon) and ten (being-acted-upon). It is not necessary that A lose part of itself in the process; only that A has the power to act upon some potential X such that X becomes actual.

    That wasn’t my question. It was about the transition from

    (1) Being A containing a virtual F PLUS being B containing a potential F



    To


    (2) Being A containing a virtual F PLUS being B containing an actual F

    What exactly has changed from (1) to (2)? According to the principle of proportionate causality, something must have been given from A to B in order to make (1) to (2) occur. What was given in this situation? Simply saying that change happened through A causing a change (category 9) that B received (category 10) is just circular.


    I'm not incredibly well-versed on God's relationship to prime matter, so I'm going to defer on this point.

    Wippel also didn’t have a good explanation of this, basically saying that God has a super-special thought about prime matter, which is not a real thought, because that would involve distinction and determinateness, but is still somehow a quasi-thought. Again, this just seems to shoehorn something that does not fit within the system into the system in a highly awkward fashion. And I see it as analogous to the virtual traits, which are neither actual nor potential, and thus have a new category invented to account for them, i.e. virtuality. Why not just do the same for prime matter? It does not actually or really exist, but it quasi-exists. And this just seems to be another necessary impossibility within Thomism. Prime matter, like Plato’s khora, cannot possibly exist, and yet the system cannot be possible without it. Odd.

    However, the soul itself changes, as Oderberg has written against Kenny, in that it is affected by exterior objects, desires and suchlike.

    That’s a problem, because Aquinas says that the material cannot affect the immaterial, but the immaterial can affect the material. I agree that the soul can change, though, because as it abstracts forms from material objects via the active intellect and stores them in the potential intellect it changes into a soul with more forms in its potential intellect than before.

    In this way, a per se causal series obtains, even though the emergent, spontaneous properties of the soul do not need to be reduced. As a result, we can say that A changes B without directly reducing power X in A to a further mover Y. Rather, Y changes A in one way, while A changes B in another.

    What has changed, though? A has the same substantial form and the same virtual properties as before. Perhaps a potentiality in A has been actualized in the encounter with B?

    ReplyDelete
  120. Again, you've gotten it backwards. The substantial form contains virtual powers, but its actuality in way Z wholly determines all of them.

    But substantial form F would be an entirely different substantial form if it had different virtual powers. If X’s identity changes when X’s properties change, then X’s properties are constitutive of X’s identity. After all, if X’s properties change, then X changes its identity. That is what “constituted” means, no?

    This is a completely different situation, because H2O is the chemical constituent that makes water water. It is its substantial form--its concrete species. In the case of "living thing", there is no such thing in reality (as discussed a few comboxes ago); it is merely a virtual abstraction from the concrete particular.

    But “living thing” is a virtual property of “rational animal”. If “living thing” as a virtual property were not present in “rational animal”, then it would not be the case that you have a rational animal at all.

    God qua God is totally actual being itself, and for this reason alone all things virtually pre-exist within him.

    But God’s identity depends upon the totality of virtual and pre-existent forms within him. If you subtracted a single virtual and pre-existent form from God’s essence, then God would be God* but not God. And furthermore, you cannot deny that he has virtual parts due to the virtual multiplicity of forms within his intellect. Thus, he has virtual composition, which is certainly a kind of composition, and if he has a kind of composition, then he is only relatively simple, but not absolutely simple.

    Esse subsistens sustains accidents, because accidents have esse. They are mind-independently real. But esse subsistens only sustains logical beings indirectly, because they have no esse at all. This is my understanding of the system.

    But didn’t you write earlier that “anything with esse has absolute existence, in the sense that it is A) actual and B) ontologically real.” If you are saying that “accidents have esse”, then it follows that accidents are both actual and ontologically real. However, isn’t it the case that accidents are not necessarily actual, i.e. they can be either potential or actual? How can an accident be actually existing, but also potentially existing at the same time?

    It is virtually divisible, but the division happens logically and not really. That's all I was saying. And a purely logical division would be based on a purely logical being, such as evil.

    How can you say that the cells of the human body are not really divisible? Millions of your cells are really and truly dividing even as you read this comment. They are quasi-actual or unreal or whatever. They are actual and real. You can look at them under a microscope. You can remove them and manipulate them with instruments. They are nothing like the conclusions of logical principles at all.

    ReplyDelete
  121. Also, it seems that a logical distinction, unlike a virtual and real distinction, is between something existent and something non-existent, whereas a virtual and real distinction are both ultimately about distinctions between existent things, and only differ in that a real distinction can actually be separated in reality, and a virtual distinction can quasi-actually be separated in reality. So, it comes down to this:

    (1) Real distinction between X and Y = actual separable X and actual separable Y
    (2) Virtual distinction between X and Y = quasi-actual inseparable X and quasi-actual inseparable Y
    (3) Logical distinction between X and Y = actual or quasi-actual X and non-existent Y

    A few comments on this account. First, it does not include the possibility of a distinction between an actual separable X and a quasi-actual inseparable Y. I don’t know if that that distinction would fit in (1) or (2), or if a fourth distinction is necessary. Second, it still isn’t clear regarding what “separable” and “inseparable” mean. I suppose it would have to be ontologically separable or inseparable, which ultimately means whether X and Y can exist independently of one another without a kind of dependency in which X exists iff Y exists. Again, that would mean that essence and existence cannot be a real distinction, because it is impossible for something to exist without an essence, and all essences occur within existing entities, whether material entities or immaterial intellects. Whether these essences derive their existence directly or indirectly seems a moot point to me.

    ReplyDelete
  122. Rank:

    Now no created intellect can know God infinitely. For the created intellect knows the Divine essence more or less perfectly in proportion as it receives a greater or lesser light of glory. Since therefore the created light of glory received into any created intellect cannot be infinite, it is clearly impossible for any created intellect to know God in an infinite degree. Hence it is impossible that it should comprehend God."

    And there’s the problem. To know God’s essence is to know infinity, because God’s essence is infinite, and yet no finite being can know God’s infinite essence, even with the “light of glory”. So, how can the blessed know God’s essence in the beautific vision? It is impossible.

    "Therefore he who sees God's essence, sees in Him that He exists infinitely, and is infinitely knowable; nevertheless, this infinite mode does not extend to enable the knower to know infinitely; thus, for instance, a person can have a probable opinion that a proposition is demonstrable, although he himself does not know it as demonstrated."

    Again, to know God’s essence is to have his essence in one’s intellect. That is what knowledge is supposed to be on the Thomist account. However, it is impossible for a finite intellect to contain an infinite essence, such as God’s, and thus it is impossible for a finite intellect to know God. Furthermore, since God is metaphysically simple, there is no sense to understanding God only partially, because he has no parts, and thus to know God at all one must know him entirely and not partially, which means that his essence must be fully contained and present to a finite intellect. However, we have already seen that this is impossible, and thus a finite intellect can never know God unless that finite intellect becomes an infinite intellect, i.e. becomes God, which is also impossible.

    for no matter how much the knowledge of one who knows God by a likeness may advance, it can never equal the knowledge of a possessor, who sees God through His essence.

    Since it is impossible for a finite being’s intellect to be infinite, it can never possess God within its finite intellect due to God’s infinity. There is no such thing as possessing the essence of God within a finite intellect, and thus there is no such thing as “the knowledge of a possessor”.

    As you can see, Hart and Aquinas speak in pretty much the same language here, which is common to nearly all Christian classical theism. There is no paradox here.

    Hart’s account puts God’s infinity into the experience of a temporal being. A temporal being always experiences a future, and since God’s infinity has no limit, there is always more of him to know and experience beyond the temporal horizon of the present. In other words, a temporal being will know only a part of God, and never know the entirety of God. However, to know God’s essence is to know the entirety of God, because his essence = his existence = his power = his knowledge = his will, and thus the entirety of God himself would have to be present in a finite intellect, which is impossible, even with the “light of glory”, because the light of glory “cannot be infinite”. In other words, there is no such thing as a partial knowledge of God, according to the Thomist theory of mind, but rather you either possess God’s essence or you do not possess God’s essence. It certainly seems that you cannot possess God’s essence, and thus you cannot have knowledge of God at all.

    The paradox remains if you want to say (1) the blessed know God’s essence in the beautific vision in the afterlife, and (2) to know X is to possess the essence of X in one’s intellect. (1) and (2) contradict one another thoroughly.

    ReplyDelete
  123. DGuller: How can you say that the cells of the human body are not really divisible? […] You can remove them and manipulate them with instruments. They are nothing like the conclusions of logical principles at all.

    Not sure how much this will help, but on the theory that it can't hurt: something is virtually X if it has the virtue, or power, of X without actually being X. So virtual reality has the same effects as reality (it looks like reality, sounds like reality, etc.), even though it isn't really reality. A body virtually contains cells because it causes the same effects (e.g. if you look at it under a microscope), even though for A-T it is a single substance, not a collection of cells/parts. [A body is also potentially made up of cells because you can pull it apart and turn it into a collection of parts. But while it still exists as a body, it has the powers of those parts without being them.] And premises have the "power" of their conclusions: everything that follows from the hypotenuse summing to the squares of the other sides already follows from the definition of a right-angled triangle — so you can study premises (which are not conclusions) or bodies (which are not cells) and get the same effects as if you were studying the conclusions or cells. (It would be weird if bodies were virtually cells but not potentially able to be divided up into cells (and cells into molecules, etc.), or vice versa — or at least, it would make science harder. But that's how virtual divsion is kinda like parts and kinda not like parts.)

    ReplyDelete
  124. Rank:

    And I wanted to revise some of my earlier comments.

    Regarding whether the soul can change, I initially said that I agreed that it could, but upon further reflection, I have to say that I disagree. The soul is the substantial form of a human being, and for a soul to change would mean that it contained a potency that was actualized. However, as you said earlier, no form has potency, because then it would change into a different form once its potency was actualized, which is absurd. So, I have to say that the soul cannot change, but the human being can change. The interesting next question is, what accounts for this change? It cannot be a change in the form, as we have said, and thus it must be a change in the matter. But that makes no sense, because a human being has an immaterial intellect, which changes from potential containment of forms in the passive intellect to actual containment of forms in the passive intellect, and thus change in humans must include a change in the immaterial component of human beings, and not only in the material component of human beings.

    However, if that was the case, then you have an odd situation. The following equation holds true:

    (1) Substantial form of humanity + prime matter = an immaterial intellect of human being + a material body of a human being

    Given that the substantial form (or soul) of the human being survives the death of the material body in an immaterial form, it seems that according to the above equation, the following holds true:

    (2) Substantial form of humanity = an immaterial intellect of human being
    (3) Prime matter = a material body of a human being

    But the problem with (3) is that prime matter has no form or determinate features whatsoever, and a material body has a form, and thus (3) must be false. So, what exactly is going on here? Is (2) true? It seems clearly false, because the substantial form of humanity includes not only an immaterial intellect and will but also a material body, because a complete human being necessarily requires a physical body. So, neither (2) nor (3) can be true, and so I don’t understand what is going on.

    It seems that the substantial form of humanity organizes prime matter into the material body, but still retains a residual immaterial intellect and will that remains separate but attached. So, the substantial form has two components, an immaterial subsistent component that contains the intellect and will and an organizational structure for prime matter to assume the shape of a physical body. But that leads to a further question, i.e. if the substantial form of humanity is the same in all human beings, then it follows that every substantial form of humanity has the same immaterial subsistent component and the same organizational structure for prime matter. However, that is impossible, because then every human being would be the same. Either prime matter does have some differentiating features that individuate particular human beings, or the substantial form of humanity is different in different human beings. Both of these possibilities are highly problematic for the Thomist account. If the former, then prime matter has a form, which is impossible. If the latter, then you effectively have nominalism, which is problematic.

    ReplyDelete
  125. It seems that a human being is a complex entity with multiple parts, including various primary actualities,

    This would be impossible, because it would mean that the human had multiple substantial forms.

    But this doesn’t help the issue of how the primary actuality actually actualizes a potential secondary actuality.

    The primary actuality allows for the secondary actuality, but some third party must actualize the secondary actuality, in most cases. In the case of the substantial form and prime matter, a third entity must combine the two; and the same goes for the human person. The primary actuality (the form) never changes, and the various secondary actualities for which it allows must be actualized either through the intellect/will (powers--not primary actualities--of the form) or through some other cause.

    In the case of God, he is both fully actual and an agent, and so his intellect and will are not merely powers but are identical with him.

    It already has the esse that it can give to the potential secondary actuality to actualize it, and they are both present within the entity in question, and so what is stopping the actualization from occurring?

    Nothing can give esse to anything else. Esse is God's sustaining force that is presupposed by any other metaphysical discussion. If we are discussing "creation" and "change" with regard to entities other than God, we are dealing with substantial and accidental change; nothing more.

    But this is where this account starts to break down for me. How can a distinction be “based on something real”, but “not real”? How can there be “different ways” to look at F1 if F1 is really “indistinct”? Different ways implies distinction, and if there is no real distinction, then there is no real difference, either, and so what exactly is going on here?

    Again, if you deny the virtual distinction, then you are left with the absurd conclusions that humans contain multiple souls (rational, animal, vegetable), that there are no conclusions reachable by the three axioms, that people cannot learn (http://dhspriory.org/thomas/PostAnalytica.htm#3) and that reductionism is true, among other things. (Either that, or you subscribe to the theory that the three axioms are infinitely long, that people already know everything and so on.)

    How can you say that the pre-existent virtual powers of the hand “do not reveal a structure within the hand”? The multiple pre-existent virtual powers are the structure, no?

    On bundle theory, sure. But that just begs the question, since the truth of bundle theory versus essentialism would be the thing at issue.

    A power is something that flows from a form. It does not flow from a power. Forms are not powers.

    First, are you saying that actual state Z is what causes the transition from quasi-actual F (i.e. F3) to actual F (i.e. F1)?

    I'm saying that every actuality is actual in a certain way. That certain way is Z, here. It is only because F1 is Z that it contains other things virtually, because of the metaphysically/logically necessary connection between actualities and certain manifested virtualities.

    ReplyDelete
  126. Second, does the rule that for potency to change to act there must be some other actual agent to cause the change also apply to the transition from quasi-actual to actual?

    You can't change something from quasi-actual to actual. That makes no sense. A virtual trait, distinction or attribute is something that is possessed within some actual entity. It cannot be actualized further, because it is merely a certain trait, distinction or attribute immediately entailed by F1 qua Z. In that sense, it is already actual, although not absolutely.

    Change occurs when F1 qua Z actualizes some potentiality entailed by its virtual aspects. Virtual things do not change except in the mind, unless the actuality in which they are housed changes, at which point they may be destroyed. Rather, there are certain potentialities entailed by virtualities, which are in turn entailed by actualities. From a common sense perspective, the actuality and its powers do all the work; but pre-existent virtual traits (etc.) are what allow those powers to exist.

    Third, if you remove all F3’s from M, then what do you have left? It seems that without the F3’s, M is empty, and thus the constitution of M necessarily consists of the various F3’s within it. As you said, to change the F3’s is to change M into M1 (or something). Or maybe you have another definition of what it means to say that X is constituted by Y?

    There is a logically necessary connection between virtualities, powers, potentialities and actualities. Actuality -> virtuality -> power -> potentiality. This line cannot be reversed, broken or otherwise altered. It should be noted that all powers other than God's are considered "accidental", in that they are outside of an actuality and not necessarily present. However, even if they are never manifested, these powers remain pre-existent virtually within an actuality itself.

    Okay, I see. “Absolute” existence = actual and real existence, and qualified existence = not-actual and real existence.

    That's not quite the case. Remember, virtual traits are merely those which are necessarily connected to actualities qua Z, for instance; and thus they cannot be said to exist at all outside of the mind. They are based on something real, but they themselves cannot be understood to exist outside of the mind.

    Further, if "qualified" existence was not-actual and real existence, then it would follow that potentiality has qualified existence, which is false.

    Also, I’m not too clear about logical distinctions. Can you give an example of a distinction in the mind that has no referent to anything outside the mind?

    First, it's important to remember that Aquinas did not subscribe to "sign-referent" systems of meaning. He was no semiotician. Rather, his idea of intentionality relates to the real presence of the intended thing within the mind. Evil is a logical being, for instance, that is really present in the mind but that cannot exist outside of it. All privations--holes, blindness etc.--are logical beings when discussed in positive terms, such as "the eye is blind". In reality, this means "the eye cannot see", which is a privation and not a state in itself. However, we construct positive logical beings related to these things to aid in understanding. Likewise, "there is a hole" merely means "there is nothing there". (It should be remembered that a hole is not a privation in the same sense as a blind eye, because a hole is filled with potential being in reality, while a blind eye does not even have that much.)

    So, one example of a logical distinction would be to describe a certain lack via positive distinctions.

    ReplyDelete
  127. Is there no distinction between the actual primary actuality and its pre-existent and virtual traits? If you answer “yes”, then you cannot argue that the primary actuality is not constituted by its virtual traits, because you admit that there is no distinction between them at all, and thus they both refer to the same thing.

    I answer "yes", but your conclusion is a non sequitur. If it was true, then we could not learn, among other absurdities.

    Also, are you saying that it is possible for there to be an actualized primary actuality that is not a power?

    A primary actuality, in the sense we've been using it, is something like a form or the first principles. But these things, by definition, are not powers. So I'm not sure why you ask this.

    What exactly has changed from (1) to (2)? According to the principle of proportionate causality, something must have been given from A to B in order to make (1) to (2) occur. What was given in this situation? Simply saying that change happened through A causing a change (category 9) that B received (category 10) is just circular.

    A does not necessarily lose anything when it transfers B from potential to actual. Rather, B in some sense resembles A. An actual thrown ball resembles the thrower in some distant, virtual way, just as medicine resembles someone healed by it, and just as red light resembles white light.

    Wippel also didn’t have a good explanation of this, basically saying that God has a super-special thought about prime matter, which is not a real thought, because that would involve distinction and determinateness, but is still somehow a quasi-thought. Again, this just seems to shoehorn something that does not fit within the system into the system in a highly awkward fashion.

    "First, there is nothing wrong with speaking of the nature of prime matter as pure passive potency, as long as we take 'nature' loosely and not as meaning essence in the strict sense. Strictly, prime matter has no essence. Loosely, it has the nature of being pure potentiality unmixed with any determining form, substantial or accidental."

    From Real Essentialism. Oderberg goes on to suggest that prime matter might be energy.

    "Thirdly, might prime matter by energy? It is an intriguing question that I cannot pursue here. One problem is that the hylemorphist has a better grasp of what prime matter is than the physicist has of what energy is, and since metaphysics has to be informed by science there will be severe limits to what the former can say about the possible identification of prime matter with energy. If there are substantial energy transformation (e.g. heat to sound, chemical to light) by which a wholly new kind of thing comes into existence, there will have to be prime matter distinct from energy as a support. But if such transformations are but phases of an underlying pure energy that has no determinate form in itself, then perhaps one might venture the the thought that they are one and the same."

    This is a helpful way to conceptualize prime matter. It also makes clearer these descriptions from Aquinas.

    ReplyDelete
  128. "Hence, whoever has a knowledge of matter and of what designates matter, and also of form individuated in matter, must have a knowledge of the singular. But the knowledge of God extends to matter and to individuating accidents and forms. For, since His understanding is His essence, He must understand all things that in any way are in His essence. Now, within His essence, as within the first source, there are virtually present all things that in any way have being, since He is the first and universal principle of being. Matter and accidents are not absent from among these things, since matter is a being in potency and an accident is a being in another."

    http://dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraGentiles1.htm#65

    "Therefore whatever is the cause of things considered as beings, must be the cause of things, not only according as they are "such" by accidental forms, nor according as they are "these" by substantial forms, but also according to all that belongs to their being at all in any way. And thus it is necessary to say that also primary matter is created by the universal cause of things."

    http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1044.htm#article2

    You should read the rest of that second link to see his arguments to this effect.

    Prime matter, like Plato’s khora, cannot possibly exist, and yet the system cannot be possible without it. Odd.

    Whether or not prime matter presents a paradox--it does not--, Derrida and Caputo are still ridiculously wrong for reasons I illustrated earlier. Their position is necessarily self-refuting along the lines indicated by Nagel.

    That’s a problem, because Aquinas says that the material cannot affect the immaterial, but the immaterial can affect the material.

    Where? Anyway: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B7SKlRTfkUieN3dGVkhNTi1SQUU

    What has changed, though? A has the same substantial form and the same virtual properties as before. Perhaps a potentiality in A has been actualized in the encounter with B?

    A does not have to change in the same way that B changes. The example with the monitor cable shows this much. (In the case of first principles and substantial forms, the primary actuality does not change at all, because to change would mean destruction. Rather, the accidental powers outside of them are actualized.)

    But substantial form F would be an entirely different substantial form if it had different virtual powers.

    What you're describing is a logically impossible scenario.

    But “living thing” is a virtual property of “rational animal”. If “living thing” as a virtual property were not present in “rational animal”, then it would not be the case that you have a rational animal at all.

    True enough. But, again, your argument rests on a logical impossibility: a virtuality determining and not determined by an actuality. A virtuality just is a pre-existent trait within F1 qua Z, and it cannot be otherwise. Actuality Z necessarily entails virtuality K, always and without exception.

    But God’s identity depends upon the totality of virtual and pre-existent forms within him. If you subtracted a single virtual and pre-existent form from God’s essence, then God would be God* but not God.

    Again, this is logically impossible and therefore irrelevant.

    If you are saying that “accidents have esse”, then it follows that accidents are both actual and ontologically real. However, isn’t it the case that accidents are not necessarily actual, i.e. they can be either potential or actual? How can an accident be actually existing, but also potentially existing at the same time?

    An accident is an actual accident. A potential accident is a "not-yet-accident", and so it is not an accident.

    ReplyDelete
  129. How can you say that the cells of the human body are not really divisible? Millions of your cells are really and truly dividing even as you read this comment. They are quasi-actual or unreal or whatever. They are actual and real. You can look at them under a microscope. You can remove them and manipulate them with instruments. They are nothing like the conclusions of logical principles at all.

    You don't seem to understand what I'm saying, here. If the cells had an absolute existence, then it would follow that a human just was its cells, which would mean that reductionism was true. Forms require virtualities by necessity. Water is virtually composed of hydrogen and oxygen. If it was actually composed of them, then the emergent compound H2O would not exist, and it would follow that water was nothing other than hydrogen and oxygen. This is, for the usual anti-reductionist reasons, ridiculous.

    (1) Real distinction between X and Y = actual separable X and actual separable Y
    (2) Virtual distinction between X and Y = quasi-actual inseparable X and quasi-actual inseparable Y
    (3) Logical distinction between X and Y = actual or quasi-actual X and non-existent Y


    This seems roughly correct.

    First, it does not include the possibility of a distinction between an actual separable X and a quasi-actual inseparable Y.

    If you're referring to the connection between powers and virtualities, then it is not necessary to make this distinction. When we talk about powers, we discuss them in relation to actualities--virtualities are merely implied. So the distinction is a real one, and no fourth category is necessary.

    Second, it still isn’t clear regarding what “separable” and “inseparable” mean. I suppose it would have to be ontologically separable or inseparable, which ultimately means whether X and Y can exist independently of one another without a kind of dependency in which X exists iff Y exists.

    As Oderberg said in that Google Books link that I wanted you to read, a real distinction does not entail ontological separability. Here's a tinyurl of that link: http://tinyurl.com/8bazrbg.

    And there’s the problem. To know God’s essence is to know infinity, because God’s essence is infinite, and yet no finite being can know God’s infinite essence, even with the “light of glory”. So, how can the blessed know God’s essence in the beautific vision? It is impossible.

    Everyone agrees that it's impossible to totally know God. In visualizing what Aquinas has in mind, it can be helpful to think of it in terms of the Palamistic distinction between God's "essence" and "energies". The energies are somewhat like the light put off immediately around the sun, although more closely related--the Orthodox identify the energies directly with God. The sun itself, from which these energies emerge, is utterly unknowable. This means that we can know God by a certain mode, but never by the mode through which God knows himself.

    ReplyDelete
  130. Aquinas makes this distinction as well, but he does so in humans rather than in God. We know God by a finite mode, which is infinitely different from the way in which God knows himself. The way in which we know God is created (or "uncreated") grace, through which a connection between God and man is made. There are different levels of grace obtainable by a human, although these do not equate to differences in God: only in our perception of God. This is why God is "infinitely knowable": we can always know more than we do, because we know him by a finite rather than an infinite mode.

    Again, to know God’s essence is to have his essence in one’s intellect. That is what knowledge is supposed to be on the Thomist account. However, it is impossible for a finite intellect to contain an infinite essence, such as God’s, and thus it is impossible for a finite intellect to know God.

    It is impossible for an intellect to know all of God, but I don't see any contradiction in a finite intellect coming into an ever greater understanding of something. Aquinas himself says that what we know of God we know "all at once", but this is merely to say that we do not need to reason from one part of God to another. As Aquinas writes, grace can increase forever.

    Furthermore, since God is metaphysically simple, there is no sense to understanding God only partially, because he has no parts, and thus to know God at all one must know him entirely and not partially, which means that his essence must be fully contained and present to a finite intellect.

    The "partially" arrives from our perception. It has nothing to do with God himself.

    Since it is impossible for a finite being’s intellect to be infinite, it can never possess God within its finite intellect due to God’s infinity.

    You have yet to explain how "some knowledge of God" equals "no knowledge of God".

    A temporal being always experiences a future, and since God’s infinity has no limit, there is always more of him to know and experience beyond the temporal horizon of the present.

    Actually, no. The Beatific Vision is beyond temporality, and Hart would never claim otherwise. He is discussing the relationship between the finite and the infinite.

    The paradox remains if you want to say (1) the blessed know God’s essence in the beautific vision in the afterlife, and (2) to know X is to possess the essence of X in one’s intellect. (1) and (2) contradict one another thoroughly.

    Only if you don't understand the doctrine of sanctifying grace.

    ReplyDelete
  131. Rank:

    This would be impossible, because it would mean that the human had multiple substantial forms.

    I thought that a single substantial form had a number of powers within it? After all, a human being has the single substantial form of “rational animal”, but a human being has a number of powers, including vegetative, appetitive and rational powers. Each of these powers is distinct, and thus can be conceived as a distinct part of what it means to be a human being. That’s all I meant.

    The primary actuality allows for the secondary actuality, but some third party must actualize the secondary actuality, in most cases. In the case of the substantial form and prime matter, a third entity must combine the two; and the same goes for the human person. The primary actuality (the form) never changes, and the various secondary actualities for which it allows must be actualized either through the intellect/will (powers--not primary actualities--of the form) or through some other cause.

    I’m talking about something far more mundane. To say that A caused B to become X means (1) A contained a pre-existent and virtual X, (2) B contained a potential X, and (3) B’s potential X became an actual X. The principle of proportionate causality says that A had to give something to B in order to cause the transition from a potential X to an actual X, and I want to know what exactly A gave to B to make this change occur.

    Nothing can give esse to anything else. Esse is God's sustaining force that is presupposed by any other metaphysical discussion. If we are discussing "creation" and "change" with regard to entities other than God, we are dealing with substantial and accidental change; nothing more.

    Then I don’t understand what A gives to B to make a potential X become an actual X. Furthermore, I do not understand what a pre-existent and virtual X adds to the equation, except as a redundant way of saying that A can cause the transition from potential X to actual X in B. I thought that having a pre-existent and virtual X meant that A had something that A then gave to B to make the transition, presumably something related to the pre-existent and virtual X, but it seems that A does not change at all in the causal interaction. And if A does change, then what changes in A? Perhaps the actualization of a potential accident Y? What accident changes in such a way when a fire starts another fire in another flammable substance?

    Again, if you deny the virtual distinction, then you are left with the absurd conclusions that humans contain multiple souls (rational, animal, vegetable), that there are no conclusions reachable by the three axioms, that people cannot learn (http://dhspriory.org/thomas/PostAnalytica.htm#3) and that reductionism is true, among other things. (Either that, or you subscribe to the theory that the three axioms are infinitely long, that people already know everything and so on.)

    I just want to better understand it. So far, I understand a virtual X to be a quasi-actual X. The question is how a quasi-actual X can be an efficient cause of anything. It is my understanding that only an actual X can be an efficient cause of anything, and so the question is whether a quasi-actual X is an actual X or not an actual X. If it is an actual X, then you have eliminated the distinction between a quasi-actual X and an actual X, because they both are coextensive. If it is not an actual X, then a quasi-actual X cannot be an efficient cause of anything, which undermines the entire justification for postulating a virtual X to begin with.

    ReplyDelete
  132. Change occurs when F1 qua Z actualizes some potentiality entailed by its virtual aspects.

    I don’t understand. F1 is the actualized F, F2 is the potential F and F3 is the virtual F. So, you have an X that has an F1 and an F3, and you have a Y that has an F2. Are you saying that F2 in Y depends upon F3 in X? What if Y never encountered an X? Would its F2 still depend upon the F3 in X?

    There is a logically necessary connection between virtualities, powers, potentialities and actualities. Actuality -> virtuality -> power -> potentiality. This line cannot be reversed, broken or otherwise altered. It should be noted that all powers other than God's are considered "accidental", in that they are outside of an actuality and not necessarily present. However, even if they are never manifested, these powers remain pre-existent virtually within an actuality itself.

    But you still didn’t answer my question. If power flows from virtuality, then a different set of virtual properties would imply a different set of powers, and thus the powers that are definitive of a kind of being depend upon a particular set of virtual properties. My question was what is left once you have eliminated this set of virtual properties, because you seemed to imply that they do not add anything to its essential definition. In other words, even if there were no virtual properties, the essence of a thing would still have a definition. In that case, I was wondering what that definition would be, such that it made no mention of virtual properties or powers?

    That's not quite the case. Remember, virtual traits are merely those which are necessarily connected to actualities qua Z, for instance; and thus they cannot be said to exist at all outside of the mind. They are based on something real, but they themselves cannot be understood to exist outside of the mind.

    First, maybe you should clarify what you mean by “Z”, because I think I’m getting confused.

    Second, I am trying to understand the meaning of “real”, “exist” and “actual” here, because they are all supposed to be different, which is why you can say things like X is quasi-actual, pre-existent but real. Can you give clear definitions of these terms that properly differentiate them?

    I answer "yes", but your conclusion is a non sequitur. If it was true, then we could not learn, among other absurdities.

    If you answer “yes”, then you affirm that there is no distinction between the actual primary actuality and its pre-existent and virtual traits, which means that the actual primary actuality of X and the pre-existent and virtual traits of X are the same thing. They refer to the same thing, but according to different senses, so to speak, much like divine goodness has the same referent as divine wisdom, but has a different sense. Thus, if it makes sense to say that the divine goodness is the divine wisdom, then it also makes sense to say that actual primary actuality is pre-existent and virtual traits. It does not seem to be a non sequitor, unless you have a particular conception of “no distinction between X and Y”?

    ReplyDelete
  133. A primary actuality, in the sense we've been using it, is something like a form or the first principles. But these things, by definition, are not powers. So I'm not sure why you ask this.

    I’m asking, because my understanding of a power was of an actualized teleological directedness towards the actualization of a particular set of potentialities, and thus power is fully actualized as a primary actuality as soon as a being exists. For example, as soon as a human being exists, it has the power of intellect as a primary actuality, irrespective of whether it ever actualizes the secondary actuality of abstraction of forms from phantasms. So, if a primary actuality is just a form, then once that form is actualized as an ens, for example, then it necessarily has powers by virtue of the primary actuality of its nature/essence/form. And thus, it makes no sense to talk about an actualized primary actuality that is not a power.

    A does not necessarily lose anything when it transfers B from potential to actual. Rather, B in some sense resembles A. An actual thrown ball resembles the thrower in some distant, virtual way, just as medicine resembles someone healed by it, and just as red light resembles white light.

    The question was what was given by A to B. What was given?

    "First, there is nothing wrong with speaking of the nature of prime matter as pure passive potency, as long as we take 'nature' loosely and not as meaning essence in the strict sense. Strictly, prime matter has no essence. Loosely, it has the nature of being pure potentiality unmixed with any determining form, substantial or accidental."

    Exactly. As long as you throw out everything that you have said about “nature” in your precise philosophical analysis, and use the commonsense term instead, then you might be able to get traction, but if you are using “nature” as defined by the philosophical system, then prime matter cannot ever be spoken of as having a nature, ever. It would be like saying that a triangle cannot possibly have four sides, and then talk about a triangle with four sides, but “loosely defined”.

    You should read the rest of that second link to see his arguments to this effect.

    I must have missed the argument. Aquinas basically argues that if God is to be considered the cause of beings, whether substantial or accidental, he must also be the cause of whatever makes substantial or accidental being possible, which necessarily includes prime matter.

    The paradox arises when we consider how God could create prime matter without having the exemplar or divine idea of prime matter. Either prime matter has determinate features that distinguishes the divine idea of prime matter from other divine ideas, or prime matter has no such determinate features. If the former, then it necessarily has a form, which is just that which defines what something is, and would have to include what prime matter is. To say that prime matter has defining features contained in the divine idea of prime matter, but deny that prime matter has a form is to effectively drain “form” of any legitimate meaning. If the latter, then there was no such independent divine idea of prime matter that was created.

    Where?

    It’s in Stump’s Aquinas on pages 263-4. She cites Aquinas as saying, “nothing corporeal can make an impression (imprimere) on an incorporeal thing” (ST Ia.84.6). She basically says that the senses cannot make an impact upon the intellect, but rather the intellect acts upon the sensible species within the phantasms to abstract essences. I took this to be a universal principle, but I may have been mistaken.

    ReplyDelete
  134. What you're describing is a logically impossible scenario.

    If a form just is the primary actuality, and the primary actuality just is the virtual properties that it contains, then it follows that if form F had virtual properties A, B and C, and another form had virtual properties A and B, but not C, then we could not say that that form was F. It would have to be G, i.e. a totally different form. So, you are right that it would be logically impossible for F to be G, which just proves my point, i.e. that the definition of a form just is the set of virtual properties that it contains, and a different set of virtual properties would result in a different form altogether.

    You don't seem to understand what I'm saying, here. If the cells had an absolute existence, then it would follow that a human just was its cells, which would mean that reductionism was true.

    Why? Absolute existence is just actual and real existence, right? You wouldn’t say that the cells of the human body are actual and real? When one cell signals another cell, isn’t it necessarily actual? After all, it is causing a neigbouring cell to change in some way, which can only occur if both cells are actual, and if the cells are actual, then they have to be real, unless you want to say that X can be actual, but unreal?

    Forms require virtualities by necessity. Water is virtually composed of hydrogen and oxygen. If it was actually composed of them, then the emergent compound H2O would not exist, and it would follow that water was nothing other than hydrogen and oxygen. This is, for the usual anti-reductionist reasons, ridiculous.

    Then this is a problem for the entire account, irrespective of issues related to reductionism. Remember that only what actually exists can be an efficient cause of anything, and it is certainly the case that the hydrogen atoms within water are efficient causes of energy changes of surrounding atoms, whether hydrogen or oxygen. As you said, a virtual property never changes, and thus when a hydrogen atom changes location within a drop of water, then a transition has occurred, which is impossible if you are correct. Perhaps you want to argue that nothing changes within a drop of water? That the various energy changes associated with atomic interactions does not actually happen? That, in fact, there is no change whatsoever within a drop of water? After all, any change is a transition from potency to act, which cannot occur with the virtual atoms within a drop of water.

    As Oderberg said in that Google Books link that I wanted you to read, a real distinction does not entail ontological separability.

    From what I can tell, what Oderberg means is that for physical beings, it is possible for their essences to be instantiated without those physical beings actually existing, which can occur when those essences are within an intellect, for example. In other words, you can have an essence of a physical being exist but that physical being does not actually exist. And what he means by an absence of “ontological separability” is that you cannot have free-floating essences utterly separate from any immanent presence within an existent being of some kind, whether material or immaterial. However, he does not mean that the presence of a physical essence can be ontologically separate from the actual existing of a physical being with that physical essence. And that is what I was talking about, i.e. the one can exist without the other, and this is what real distinction is all about.

    ReplyDelete
  135. Everyone agrees that it's impossible to totally know God.

    Great. The question is how we can possibly even partially know God, given the Thomist account of knowledge. Again, God has no parts, which means that partial knowledge is impossible, and his essence is is actual existence, and thus to contain his essence is to contain God himself within the intellect, which is impossible.

    In visualizing what Aquinas has in mind, it can be helpful to think of it in terms of the Palamistic distinction between God's "essence" and "energies". The energies are somewhat like the light put off immediately around the sun, although more closely related--the Orthodox identify the energies directly with God. The sun itself, from which these energies emerge, is utterly unknowable. This means that we can know God by a certain mode, but never by the mode through which God knows himself.

    That does not help the Thomist account. Remember that for Aquinas, the following principle is true:

    (1) X has knowledge of P iff the essence of P is present within X’s intellect

    If you reject this account, then let me know, because I believe that it is pretty standard. And if you accept this account, then it is impossible for anyone to ever know God.

    Aquinas makes this distinction as well, but he does so in humans rather than in God. We know God by a finite mode, which is infinitely different from the way in which God knows himself.

    Still does not answer my critique, though. To know God is to have his essence in our intellect, which means that God himself is in our intellect, which is impossible. To know God partially is to have part of his essence in our intellect, which means that God has parts, which is impossible.

    The way in which we know God is created (or "uncreated") grace, through which a connection between God and man is made. There are different levels of grace obtainable by a human, although these do not equate to differences in God: only in our perception of God. This is why God is "infinitely knowable": we can always know more than we do, because we know him by a finite rather than an infinite mode.

    But it is because we know God finitely that we cannot ever know him at all, because his essence is infinite, and completely surpasses any containment within our intellect, which is the prerequisite for knowledge of anything.

    It is impossible for an intellect to know all of God, but I don't see any contradiction in a finite intellect coming into an ever greater understanding of something. Aquinas himself says that what we know of God we know "all at once", but this is merely to say that we do not need to reason from one part of God to another. As Aquinas writes, grace can increase forever.

    As you quoted Aquinas: “For the created intellect knows the Divine essence more or less perfectly in proportion as it receives a greater or lesser light of glory. Since therefore the created light of glory received into any created intellect cannot be infinite, it is clearly impossible for any created intellect to know God in an infinite degree. Hence it is impossible that it should comprehend God”. It seems that Aquinas is disagreeing that grace can increase forever, because it “cannot be infinite”, unless you want to say that “forever” and “infinite” are not coextensive?

    The "partially" arrives from our perception. It has nothing to do with God himself.

    How does this partiality occur in our minds? Do we contain God’s full essence in our intellect, but it is obscured by other mental factors? Do we contain a part of God’s essence in our intellect? Do we contain nothing of God’s essence in our intellect, but have some kind of mental construct that has nothing to do with God? Furthermore, perception is a sensory capacity, which cannot see God at all.

    ReplyDelete
  136. You have yet to explain how "some knowledge of God" equals "no knowledge of God".

    Because to have “some knowledge” means to have “partial knowledge”. After all, you either have all knowledge of X, some knowledge of X, or no knowledge of X. And if you have partial knowledge of God, then how is this possible? God has no parts, and thus it cannot be the case that you have part of his essence in your intellect. God’s essence is his existence, and thus you cannot have his entire essence in your intellect, because then God himself would be within your intellect, which is impossible. So, what is left? You cannot have all of God’s essence in your intellect, and you cannot have some of God’s essence in your intellect. All that is left is having none of God’s essence in your intellect, which means that you do not know God at all.

    Actually, no. The Beatific Vision is beyond temporality, and Hart would never claim otherwise. He is discussing the relationship between the finite and the infinite.

    If the Beautific Vision is “beyond temporality”, then it is also beyond any kind of transitional change, because for Aristotle, change is temporality. If that is true, then there is no such thing as a finite being having ever more increasing knowledge of God stretching to eternity, because “ever more increasing X” implies a transition from less knowledge of X to more knowledge of X, which is necessarily a temporal transition, which is supposed to be impossible in something that is “beyond temporality.

    ReplyDelete
  137. I thought that a single substantial form had a number of powers within it? After all, a human being has the single substantial form of “rational animal”, but a human being has a number of powers, including vegetative, appetitive and rational powers.

    Powers are not within anything, except God. In all other cases, powers are exterior manifestations that in no way exist inside forms. (What do exist inside forms, however, are virtualities. It is through these that powers are manifested.)

    To say that A caused B to become X means (1) A contained a pre-existent and virtual X, (2) B contained a potential X, and (3) B’s potential X became an actual X. The principle of proportionate causality says that A had to give something to B in order to cause the transition from a potential X to an actual X, and I want to know what exactly A gave to B to make this change occur.

    The answer depends on whether or not A is an equivocal cause.

    If A = pill, B = sick person and X = health, then A dissolves when it changes B to X. This would be an example of virtual pre-existence followed by equivocal change. This occurs through the ninth and tenth categories, and it implies the fourth. Here, the pill is destroyed, which also destroys its virtuality--but this is, of course, not the case with all equivocal causation. (With God, creation is not a change, and so this example is only an analogy.)

    Furthermore, I do not understand what a pre-existent and virtual X adds to the equation, except as a redundant way of saying that A can cause the transition from potential X to actual X in B.

    You should know by now that the virtual distinction is not at all redundant.

    I thought that having a pre-existent and virtual X meant that A had something that A then gave to B to make the transition, presumably something related to the pre-existent and virtual X, but it seems that A does not change at all in the causal interaction.

    You've forgotten that this is equivocal causation. It's very different than the hand-stick-stone example. The way in which A changes B is not univocal. A pill causes health, but it is not healthy. On the other hand, a stick causes movement because it is moving. Further, a dribbling hand does not cause bouncing because it is bouncy; but a pitcher causes a ball to move fast because his arm is fast.

    In cases of equivocal causation, the effect pre-exists virtually in the cause. The cause operates under a different mode than the effect, unlike in univocal situations. That is, the hand is not bouncy, but bounciness pre-exists within the hand in "potency", so to speak. (Remember, if it was really "potential" rather than virtual, then we would be left with an infinite regress of potential bounciness.)

    ReplyDelete
  138. And if A does change, then what changes in A? Perhaps the actualization of a potential accident Y? What accident changes in such a way when a fire starts another fire in another flammable substance?

    One fire starting another is univocal causation, I believe. Aquinas would classify these as "fiery things".

    Anyway, the equivocal change can happen in any number of ways. The pill is put in the mouth by a hand. The soul moves the bouncing arm. Perhaps a mechanical bouncing arm would be moved by some combination of gears. You get the idea.

    So far, I understand a virtual X to be a quasi-actual X. The question is how a quasi-actual X can be an efficient cause of anything.

    It isn't the efficient cause of anything. The fully actual Y in which X inheres is the efficient cause via its powers. However, these powers, whether or not they are exercised, are always within Y because of X. X does nothing, actualizes nothing, changes nothing and has only an implicit existence within Y. Regardless, Y, because it is Y, possesses a variety of virtualities through which its powers are understood.

    If it is not an actual X, then a quasi-actual X cannot be an efficient cause of anything, which undermines the entire justification for postulating a virtual X to begin with.

    No, it doesn't. Y is the cause, but, unless Y possesses its effect in some way, then it cannot cause it. It possesses the effect virtually, which is to say that Y is in no way its effect, but that, when looking at Y in a certain way, it becomes possible to see a pre-existent X and thus make sense of Y's power. In the case of humans, they have virtual forms within their actual form. The actual form is in no way composed of these abstractions, but it is through them that we can understand the form's various powers.

    I don’t understand. F1 is the actualized F, F2 is the potential F and F3 is the virtual F. So, you have an X that has an F1 and an F3, and you have a Y that has an F2. Are you saying that F2 in Y depends upon F3 in X? What if Y never encountered an X? Would its F2 still depend upon the F3 in X?

    Yes.

    But you still didn’t answer my question. If power flows from virtuality, then a different set of virtual properties would imply a different set of powers, and thus the powers that are definitive of a kind of being depend upon a particular set of virtual properties.

    But it is logically impossible for a different set of virtualities to obtain unless the actuality in which they inhere is changed. You're looking at this upside-down. Virtualities are abstractions from a real actuality, and they do not and cannot exist outside of our understanding. This does not mean that something cannot be actually whole and logically complex. God is metaphysically simple and totally whole, and yet he is infinitely complex from a virtual standpoint. Likewise, a human form is actually whole, but every single power that a human can possess is virtually within it, which makes it stunningly complex. A final example would be the three axioms, which are extremely simple and yet contain every possible conclusion of logic. Again, if the axioms just were their conclusions, then we have all kinds of problems. And, if the conclusions were potential inside of the axioms, then A) an infinite regress would obtain and B) the axioms themselves would have to change, which would destroy them. The virtual distinction is necessary.

    ReplyDelete
  139. My question was what is left once you have eliminated this set of virtual properties, because you seemed to imply that they do not add anything to its essential definition.

    You cannot eliminate virtual properties. They are logically entailed by certain kinds of actuality, and they cannot ever change unless the actuality itself changes. Y possesses virtual property X if and only if Y is actual in way Z. X exists if and only if Z is true of Y. If Z was determined by Y, then one of two conclusions must follow:

    1) Y exists iff Z, but Z is Z iff Y. This is circular.
    2) Z just is Y, in which case bundle theory is true.

    The only remaining option:

    3) Y exists iff Z, and Z is Z.

    This is a one-way determination partly grounded on the law of identity. It is the only acceptable conclusion.

    In other words, even if there were no virtual properties, the essence of a thing would still have a definition. In that case, I was wondering what that definition would be, such that it made no mention of virtual properties or powers?

    It is impossible to remove virtual properties and powers, because these are necessarily entailed. In any case, Z is Z. All virtual elements flow from this truth, and we need not consider them for it to remain true.

    First, maybe you should clarify what you mean by “Z”, because I think I’m getting confused.

    By "Z", I merely mean to say that X is actual in some determinate way. That way is Z. It would probably have been simpler merely to say "X qua X" and so forth instead.

    Second, I am trying to understand the meaning of “real”, “exist” and “actual” here, because they are all supposed to be different, which is why you can say things like X is quasi-actual, pre-existent but real. Can you give clear definitions of these terms that properly differentiate them?

    "Real" and "exist" mean the same thing, which is that they have esse. "Actual" is the opposite of "potential". Virtual distinctions are "quasi-actual", "quasi-real" and pre-existent. This is to say that they are based on something real, but that they exist in a diverse way only in the mind. A human is not "really a vegetable": it is a human. Through logic, we can determine the source of the human's vegatative powers within the human form, which is virtually complex--complex only in the mind.

    If you answer “yes”, then you affirm that there is no distinction between the actual primary actuality and its pre-existent and virtual traits, which means that the actual primary actuality of X and the pre-existent and virtual traits of X are the same thing.

    Refer to the above discussion of Z's relation to Y. Unless it's one-way, we are left with circularity or bundle theory. Both cash out as logical fallacies.

    They refer to the same thing, but according to different senses, so to speak, much like divine goodness has the same referent as divine wisdom, but has a different sense. Thus, if it makes sense to say that the divine goodness is the divine wisdom, then it also makes sense to say that actual primary actuality is pre-existent and virtual traits.

    The distinction between the divine goodness and wisdom is slightly different than the virtual distinctions we've been discussing. As Aquinas says, if the divine wisdom is merely an abstraction from God's ability to cause wisdom, then it is just as well to say that God is a stone, because God has the power to cause stones. The divine names are a more complex situation that I would rather not discuss here, given the length of this debate already.

    In any case, it makes no sense to say that "health" is just another name for "pill". The pill possesses health virtually, but it is not health itself. Therefore, unless you want to fall into circularity or bundle theory, we must affirm that Z is Z and that Y exists iff Z, but that Y in no way determines Z.

    ReplyDelete
  140. Y possesses virtual property X if and only if Y is actual in way Z. X exists if and only if Z is true of Y. If Z was determined by Y, then one of two conclusions must follow:

    1) Y exists iff Z, but Z is Z iff Y. This is circular.
    2) Z just is Y, in which case bundle theory is true.

    The only remaining option:

    3) Y exists iff Z, and Z is Z.

    This is a one-way determination partly grounded on the law of identity. It is the only acceptable conclusion.


    Pardon me--I got turned around, here. Every instance of "Y" from "If Z was determined by Y" onward should be "X".

    ReplyDelete
  141. Rank:

    Powers are not within anything, except God. In all other cases, powers are exterior manifestations that in no way exist inside forms. (What do exist inside forms, however, are virtualities. It is through these that powers are manifested.)

    But you would agree that different virtualities would mean different manifested powers, right?

    If A = pill, B = sick person and X = health, then A dissolves when it changes B to X. This would be an example of virtual pre-existence followed by equivocal change. This occurs through the ninth and tenth categories, and it implies the fourth. Here, the pill is destroyed, which also destroys its virtuality--but this is, of course, not the case with all equivocal causation. (With God, creation is not a change, and so this example is only an analogy.)

    But what did the pill give to the sick person that made him healthy? Remember, the pill had the pre-existent and virtual “healthy”, the sick person had the potentiality “healthy”, and after the pill dissolved and was ingested by the sick person, the potentiality “healthy” became the actuality “healthy”. Again, what did the pill give to the sick person? He did not give the form “healthy”, because it was already present in the sick person, albeit in a potential mode of existence. The pill did not give a virtual form of “healthy”, because virtual forms only exist in the intellect and not in reality, except virtually, which is some netherworld between act and potency. So, what did the pill give to the sick person that actualized the potential “healthy” into actual “healthy”?

    You've forgotten that this is equivocal causation. It's very different than the hand-stick-stone example. The way in which A changes B is not univocal. A pill causes health, but it is not healthy. On the other hand, a stick causes movement because it is moving. Further, a dribbling hand does not cause bouncing because it is bouncy; but a pitcher causes a ball to move fast because his arm is fast.

    I don’t think this addresses my question. Whether the causation is univocal or equivocal, the bottom line is, what is given from A to B to make a potential X become an actual X?

    Take a univocal example of causation. A pitcher throws a ball, which means that the pitcher’s arm was moving fast, and the ball was potentially fast, and then became actually fast. What was given? The pitcher’s arm was potentially fast, then became actually fast, and the ball was potentially fast, then became actually fast. Again, what was given? In the beginning, the pitcher’s arm and the ball were both potentially fast. Then the pitcher’s arm became actually fast, and the ball became actually fast. Again, what was given from the arm to the ball? Was it speed? No, because the ball had the potential for speed, which means that “speed” was already present, albeit in a potential mode of existence. It just needed that potential mode to be actualized. So, what was given that actualized the potential for speed? I honestly don’t know. And the same holds for equivocal causation. What does the pill give to the sick person that actualizes his potential for health?

    ReplyDelete
  142. Here’s the overall framework:

    (1) A has a potential (or virtual) X and B has a potential X
    (2) A has actual X (and still has virtual X, if A is an equivocal cause) and B still has potential X
    (3) A has actual X (and still has virtual X, if equivocal causation) and B has actual X

    What was given by A to B from (2) to (3)?

    It isn't the efficient cause of anything. The fully actual Y in which X inheres is the efficient cause via its powers. However, these powers, whether or not they are exercised, are always within Y because of X. X does nothing, actualizes nothing, changes nothing and has only an implicit existence within Y. Regardless, Y, because it is Y, possesses a variety of virtualities through which its powers are understood.

    I see. So, the quasi-actual and virtual X does nothing at all … except cause the power to do X in Y. I really don’t see how you can say that a virtual X is causally inert, and yet also say that it is the ground and underlying etiology of the power to X. It clearly does something, which is why it has to be quasi-actual. Otherwise, it would be completely inert, and thus could not do anything at all, including cause the manifest powers of Y to do X. I mean, if the virtual X really did nothing at all, then its absence would make no difference to the kinds of manifest powers Y can do, and yet it is clear that if you removed the virtual X, then you would lose the power to X, and thus it cannot be as inert as you make it seem.

    No, it doesn't. Y is the cause, but, unless Y possesses its effect in some way, then it cannot cause it. It possesses the effect virtually, which is to say that Y is in no way its effect, but that, when looking at Y in a certain way, it becomes possible to see a pre-existent X and thus make sense of Y's power. In the case of humans, they have virtual forms within their actual form. The actual form is in no way composed of these abstractions, but it is through them that we can understand the form's various powers.

    Honestly, it continues to be utterly baffling to me. You say that there really are these virtual forms within the substantial form, but they are not really there, and they are completely inert and causally neutral, as well as being only abstractions in the mind, and yet are really the supporting ground of all the powers that flow from the substantial form. I mean, do the powers really flow from the virtual forms? If they do, then these virtual forms are causally efficacious, because they cause the manifest powers of a particular being. If they do not, then are they an unreal part of the apparatus of Thomism, much like a center of gravity in physics equations? There is no real center of gravity, but it is a useful abstraction that allows us to make accurate predictive calculations of the movement of physical bodies. Are virtual properties the same thing? They are not real, but are fictions of the “equations” of Thomism that are required for its explicative power to occur?

    I made a critique of some elements of Thomism a while ago in which I argued that the terms involved had been distorted and mangled in such a way that even contradictory statements were made to seem plausible. I said that it was like saying that there are four-sided triangles out there, and yes, on a conventional understanding of “triangle”, this is obviously impossible, but when you look at it the right way, squint your eyes just right, and tilt your head in a certain way, then you can see the four-sided triangle. I keep thinking of this same idea whenever I read your explanations of virtual properties.

    But it is logically impossible for a different set of virtualities to obtain unless the actuality in which they inhere is changed.

    And that is just the point I want to make. That the virtualities are part of what defines what a substantial form is. Different virtualities means different substantial form.

    ReplyDelete
  143. You're looking at this upside-down. Virtualities are abstractions from a real actuality, and they do not and cannot exist outside of our understanding.

    Did a dinosaur have the power to eat before humans existed to think about its virtual properties? I mean, virtual properties do not actually exist outside of our minds, and thus they could not possibly exist prior to the evolution of minds.

    This does not mean that something cannot be actually whole and logically complex. God is metaphysically simple and totally whole, and yet he is infinitely complex from a virtual standpoint. Likewise, a human form is actually whole, but every single power that a human can possess is virtually within it, which makes it stunningly complex.

    Again, this just begs the question of what you want to call a “whole being”. Would you consider the planet earth a “whole being”? If you do, then all of its parts are virtual, including you and me! And if you don’t, then why not? What is the criterion by which you decide what counts as a “whole being”?

    A final example would be the three axioms, which are extremely simple and yet contain every possible conclusion of logic. Again, if the axioms just were their conclusions, then we have all kinds of problems. And, if the conclusions were potential inside of the axioms, then A) an infinite regress would obtain and B) the axioms themselves would have to change, which would destroy them. The virtual distinction is necessary.

    I agree that the virtual distinction seems as necessary as the distinction between act and potency to resolve Parmenides’ paradoxes of being. However, that does not make them any less bizarre or odd, i.e. they are real and yet unreal, there and yet not there, and so on. They content skirts along the edge of nonsense by a fine razor’s edge.

    By "Z", I merely mean to say that X is actual in some determinate way. That way is Z. It would probably have been simpler merely to say "X qua X" and so forth instead.

    What does “actual in some determinate way” mean? What other way can X actually be? Can you provide some examples here? I think that a lot hinges on this Z issue.

    It is impossible to remove virtual properties and powers, because these are necessarily entailed. In any case, Z is Z. All virtual elements flow from this truth, and we need not consider them for it to remain true.

    Really? Is it impossible to conceive of a triangle, then adding an extra side to make a square? I am not saying to take an actual triangle, change its virtual properties, and then get something else. I am making the same logical point that you are, i.e. that if X has different virtual properties than Y, then X necessarily has a different substantial form than Y. If you agree with this principle, then we are good, but there is the implication that the virtual properties define what substantial form X has, which means that they are not insignificant and inert and useless bits of the substantial form, but are actually its core and essential features.

    "Real" and "exist" mean the same thing, which is that they have esse.

    So, the following is true:

    (1) X is real = X exists = X has esse

    ReplyDelete
  144. "Actual" is the opposite of "potential".

    Things are a little more complicated. The opposite of potential is not exclusively actuality. It could also include non-being. Perhaps a better way to put it is:

    (2) X is actual = X is capable of acting upon other beings to actualize their potentialities

    (3) X is potential = (a) X is not actual, and (b) X could become actual by being actualized by another actual agent

    Virtual distinctions are "quasi-actual", "quasi-real" and pre-existent. This is to say that they are based on something real, but that they exist in a diverse way only in the mind.

    If “real” is coextensive with “existent”, then how can something be “quasi-real” and “pre-real” at the same time? “Pre-X“ implies “not yet X”, which would be identical to “quasi-X”. Does that mean that “quasi-X” just means “not yet X”? And that means that “quasi-real” just means “not yet real”? And if that is true, then doesn’t that imply that a virtual property could become real? I mean, that’s what “not yet” means. Or, maybe by “pre-X“ you mean “before X”? In that case, you have something that is “quasi-real” and “before real”, which means that it is quasi-esse before it has esse to begin with, which is absurd, because before it had esse, it would be utter non-being, and thus not quasi-esse at all, because non-being has nothing in common with esse. So, what exactly do you mean by “quasi-real” and “pre-real”?

    Furthermore, “quasi-X“ must means “having some resemblance to X”. How is a virtual property similar to actuality? A virtual property must share something in common with an actual property. Perhaps they share esse in common, because without esse, neither a virtual property nor an actual property could exist. But there is a problem with that idea. If a virtual property has esse, then it is not quasi-real at all. It is real, because X is real means X has esse. In other words, a virtual property is not like a real property, but rather it is a real property. The same problem occurs if you want to say that a virtual property is like a real property, because they must both share esse, and thus both be real.

    ReplyDelete
  145. I’m asking, because my understanding of a power was of an actualized teleological directedness towards the actualization of a particular set of potentialities, and thus power is fully actualized as a primary actuality as soon as a being exists. For example, as soon as a human being exists, it has the power of intellect as a primary actuality, irrespective of whether it ever actualizes the secondary actuality of abstraction of forms from phantasms.

    Anything can be a primary actuality if we use the term in the broad sense. However, I have been restricting myself to a certain set of primary actualities--namely, forms and the first principles--to clarify the exact necessity of the virtual distinction.

    If you're going to use "primary actuality" in the sense of a power, then you must locate the virtual distinction earlier than primary actuality. That is, it must be within the substance itself. This is the key difference between virtualities and powers: the former are within the substance, while the latter are not. (This is different in God, but it's irrelevant here.) It is only because of virtualities that powers can be understood--otherwise, the principle of proportionate causality is violated.

    So, if a primary actuality is just a form, then once that form is actualized as an ens, for example, then it necessarily has powers by virtue of the primary actuality of its nature/essence/form. And thus, it makes no sense to talk about an actualized primary actuality that is not a power.

    If everything is a power, then it follows that there are no powers. Why? Because a power springs from a form, and, if forms are just powers too, then there are no places from which a power may arise. You have, in essence, collapsed the distinction between formal and final causes, destroying both.

    Virtual distinctions exist in substances (and other things), prior to powers. They become evident through efficient causes, but they in truth pre-exist such causation--they are what allow it to exist. This is evident in that something cannot give what it does not have, and so it must have something virtually or actually before it can give it efficiently. Virtualities, then, are most apparent in the formal cause. A form contains every single possibility of a substance in a pre-existent, virtual way. (Again, denying the virtual distinction at this point would result in either an infinite regress or a near-infinitely complex form.) What we must conclude is that, by being actual in way Z, a form automatically entails a huge number of virtualities. This is not to say that it entails powers, because powers are final causes that may or may not be actualized. Rather, any power presupposes a virtual aspect in the form, through which it becomes coherent. The form "rational animal" virtually contains humor without humor ever being mentioned, and without humor ever being actualized. "Rational animal" also contains a pre-existent capacity for motion, even if this is never actualized as a power.

    ReplyDelete
  146. The question was what was given by A to B. What was given?

    You don't seem to understand equivocal causation. It means that the giver, the given and the receiver operate under different modes. The sun generates heat, but it is not a heat wave; and "hotness" is neither the sun nor a heat wave. This means that what is given is prima facie not the same as what is received (e.g. heat to hotness), and neither is identical to the giver. In the case of the pill, it dissolves into chemicals and is destroyed. However, as a result, it gives health to a person. The pill is not itself chemicals--and the chemicals are not health--but the result is health. As a result, it must be said that health pre-exists in the pill.

    In the case of God, he gives us esse. However, we are not ourselves esse, and our esse is related to God's esse as the sun to a heat wave. In that sense, it may be said that God is the sun, esse is the heat wave and we are the "hotness".

    Aquinas basically argues that if God is to be considered the cause of beings, whether substantial or accidental, he must also be the cause of whatever makes substantial or accidental being possible, which necessarily includes prime matter.

    Aquinas: "Again, we should note that although prime matter includes no form or privation in its essential meaning, yet it is never stripped away from form and privation. Sometimes it exists under one form, sometimes under another. But it can never exist by itself because, since it has no form within its own essence, it possesses no actual existence, for to be in act is impossible without form; it is in potency only. So, whatever is in act cannot be called prime matter."

    Aquinas: "On the other hand, if we take idea in its strict sense, we cannot say that first matter of itself has an idea in God that is distinct from th idea of the form or of the composite. For an idea, properly speaking is related to a thing in so far as it can be brought into existence; an matter cannot come into existence without a form, nor can a form come into existence without matter. Hence, properly speaking, there is no idea corresponding merely to matter or merely to form; but one idea corresponds to the entire composite—an idea that causes th whole, both its form and its matter. On the other hand, if we take idea in its broader sense as meaning an intelligible character or like ness, then both matter and form of themselves can be said to have an idea by which they can be known distinctly, even though they cannot exist separately. In this sense, there is no reason why there cannot be an idea of first matter, even taken in itself."

    http://dhspriory.org/thomas/QDdeVer3.htm#5

    Remember that Aquinas defines "essence" as "substance", which is to say a form-matter composite. God's ideas are not forms, but essences: things that may be created. But, because he creates the whole, it necessarily follows that he creates prime matter (which is nothing outside of a substance) and substantial forms. These gain esse because of their connection to holistic essence. Aquinas follows, "Matter derives its act of existence from God only in so far as it is part of a composite. In this sense, it does not, properly speaking, have an idea in God." Further, God can know prime matter in itself because it is virtually distinct in an essence, and so can be considered in the abstract as when we consider it.

    ReplyDelete
  147. If a form just is the primary actuality, and the primary actuality just is the virtual properties that it contains, then it follows that if form F had virtual properties A, B and C, and another form had virtual properties A and B, but not C, then we could not say that that form was F.

    dguller, you sound practically like a modalist. Drop the logically impossible talk. If I can conceive of a Twin Earth, for instance, in which water is in every way identical except in its chemical composition, it does not follow that this is possible in reality. Likewise, even if I can imagine a virtual property differing in an identical form, it does not follow that it can happen. In fact, given other facts about A-T, it's worse than that. Your conclusion is not only a non sequitur, it's a logical and metaphysical impossibility.

    To return to the only sane formula: "X exists iff Z, and Z = Z". Your other options are "Z = Z iff X, but X exists iff Z", and "Z = Z iff X, and X = X iff M". The first is circular, and the second leads your on a possible infinite regress of reductionism and bundle theory, in which Z cannot be fully defined until some bottom-level irreducible property M10 is identified. In essence, we have reached a proof by contradiction: virtual distinctions are wholly determined by and in no way determinative of actuality, on pains of circularity or self-refuting reductionism.

    Why? Absolute existence is just actual and real existence, right? You wouldn’t say that the cells of the human body are actual and real? When one cell signals another cell, isn’t it necessarily actual? After all, it is causing a neigbouring cell to change in some way, which can only occur if both cells are actual, and if the cells are actual, then they have to be real, unless you want to say that X can be actual, but unreal?

    One more time. We have three options.

    1) X exists iff Z, and Z = Z.
    2) Z = Z iff X, and X exists iff Z.
    3) Z = Z iff X, X = X iff M, etc.

    If 1), then the cells are virtual within the substance. If 2), then we are left in a fallacy. If 3), then there is no substance aside from its composition. Pick your poison.

    Remember that only what actually exists can be an efficient cause of anything, and it is certainly the case that the hydrogen atoms within water are efficient causes of energy changes of surrounding atoms, whether hydrogen or oxygen.

    Even without knowing the exact science behind this, I can see that you've imported reductionist notions here. Refer once again to my trilemma.

    And that is what I was talking about, i.e. the one can exist without the other, and this is what real distinction is all about.

    Real distinction is what Oderberg says it is. If a real distinction does not imply ontological separability, then it follows that ontological separability is not a prerequisite for a real distinction.

    ReplyDelete
  148. Rank:

    If you're going to use "primary actuality" in the sense of a power, then you must locate the virtual distinction earlier than primary actuality. That is, it must be within the substance itself. This is the key difference between virtualities and powers: the former are within the substance, while the latter are not. (This is different in God, but it's irrelevant here.) It is only because of virtualities that powers can be understood--otherwise, the principle of proportionate causality is violated.

    I think that it would be better to say that powers are both inside and outside a substance. After all, a power is a directedness from within a substance towards the final end outside a substance. It derives its sense from the final cause that it is directed towards actualizing in reality, but its directedness starts from within the substance and then points outwards. It would be a form of ek-stasis, as it were. So, I don’t think that your division between interior virtualities and external powers is necessarily complete. And if you are arguing that you do not ever observe virtualities but do observe powers, then you would be incorrect, I think, because you never observe powers either, but rather infer them based upon the observed behavior of substances.

    If everything is a power, then it follows that there are no powers. Why? Because a power springs from a form, and, if forms are just powers too, then there are no places from which a power may arise. You have, in essence, collapsed the distinction between formal and final causes, destroying both.

    A power to do X springs from an actualized form, which just is an actualized primary actuality, at least as far as I understand it. And once that primary actuality is actualized, then you have a variety of powers coming into existence that are associated with the virtual properties of the primary actuality. And what X is is what X can do, which means that formal causes and final causes are just two sides of the same coin.

    What we must conclude is that, by being actual in way Z, a form automatically entails a huge number of virtualities. This is not to say that it entails powers, because powers are final causes that may or may not be actualized. Rather, any power presupposes a virtual aspect in the form, through which it becomes coherent.

    I do not mind that virtualities are primary and powers are secondary. My only point was that you cannot have a particular set of virtualities without necessarily having a particular set of powers. It makes no sense to talk about virtualities without also talking about powers, much like it makes no sense to talk about formal causes without also talking about final causes, because they two are necessarily connected. And remember, a substance can have a power without actually ever using it.

    You don't seem to understand equivocal causation. It means that the giver, the given and the receiver operate under different modes. The sun generates heat, but it is not a heat wave; and "hotness" is neither the sun nor a heat wave. This means that what is given is prima facie not the same as what is received (e.g. heat to hotness), and neither is identical to the giver.

    First, what did the sun give to the earth that caused the earth to heat up? Did the sun give hotness, heat, or what?

    ReplyDelete
  149. Second, if I understand you correctly, then you are saying that A gives X to B, but X is in one mode in A (i.e. X(A)) and is in another mode in B (i.e. X(B)). But what I want to know is what was given, X(A) or X(B)? It cannot be X(A), because then B could never have received it, since X(A) is not the proper mode in which X can be received into B, i.e. it is not X(B). It cannot be X(B), because A did not have X(B) to begin with, but only had X(A), and the principle of proportionate causality says that A could not give what it does not have. So, if A did not have X(B), then A could not give X(B).

    In the case of the pill, it dissolves into chemicals and is destroyed. However, as a result, it gives health to a person. The pill is not itself chemicals--and the chemicals are not health--but the result is health. As a result, it must be said that health pre-exists in the pill.

    But health in the pill (i.e. H(Pill)) is different from health in the person (i.e. H(Person)). H(Pill) is a different mode than H(Person). So, my question remains: what is given, H(Pill) or H(Person)?

    Remember that Aquinas defines "essence" as "substance", which is to say a form-matter composite.

    First, Aquinas has lots of definitions of “essence”. Sometimes as form or nature, and sometimes as substance. Prime matter is not a form or a substance, but it does have a nature, i.e. pure potency, which is distinct from pure non-being.

    Second, if essence is only about form-matter composites, then does it follow that angels lack an essence, that mathematical concepts, such as triangles, lack an essence? That would be quite odd, I think.

    God's ideas are not forms, but essences: things that may be created.

    Aquinas: “Hence by ideas are understood the forms of things, existing apart from the things themselves” (ST Ia.15.1).

    But, because he creates the whole, it necessarily follows that he creates prime matter (which is nothing outside of a substance) and substantial forms. These gain esse because of their connection to holistic essence. Aquinas follows, "Matter derives its act of existence from God only in so far as it is part of a composite. In this sense, it does not, properly speaking, have an idea in God."

    Exactly. He does not have an independent idea of prime matter, because his ideas are forms, and prime matter has no form. However, he does have independent ideas of different possible and actual created beings, and whatever is entailed by their possible or actual existence. For material beings, that necessarily includes matter as part of the form-matter composite, because they can only possibly exist as such a composite.

    Further, God can know prime matter in itself because it is virtually distinct in an essence, and so can be considered in the abstract as when we consider it.

    But wait. If prime matter is virtually distinct, then it is in the same group as all other forms or exemplars within God’s intellect, because they all are virtually distinct. And if the idea of prime matter is on par with the idea of dogness, both being virtually distinct, then if God can have a virtual idea of dogness, then he should also have a virtual idea of prime matter. However, this is impossible, because even a virtual idea of X involves a form of X, and prime matter cannot have any forms, by definition. Thus, God cannot have a virtual idea of prime matter, either.

    Furthermore, if it can be considered in the abstract, then it must be considered as having some kind of distinguishing properties, such as being pure potentiality, being the subject of an actualizing form, being distinct from non-being, and so on. Those are the properties that define what prime matter is, and thus must correspond to its essence/form/nature. The problem is that prime matter cannot possibly have an essence/form/nature. So, still a contradiction.

    ReplyDelete
  150. Great. The question is how we can possibly even partially know God, given the Thomist account of knowledge. Again, God has no parts, which means that partial knowledge is impossible, and his essence is is actual existence, and thus to contain his essence is to contain God himself within the intellect, which is impossible.

    Why is it difficult for you to understand how an infinite essence can be known via a finite mode? To have an essence in the intellect merely means that it is in intellectus and available for contemplation. When God enters through grace (which can expand an infinite amount), we can have an ever greater understanding of him in contemplation, because his infinite essence is within the intellect. Here's an analogy: return to the example of possessing the three axioms "all at once" in the intellect, in which every conclusion is seen. Now imagine that the conclusions are infinite. Now imagine that your understanding can keep expanding. That gives you a general idea.

    Importantly, because God's essence = his existence, when he enters through grace, we are deified. As grace expands, our deification increases. This is to say that we become increasingly like God forever, while remaining at an infinite distance from him. Again, Hart says that "one is always at the beginning of one's pilgrimage toward him, always discovering and entering into greater dimensions of his beauty."

    Further, it is no contradiction to say that God himself enters the intellect, or that the intellect in some way transforms into God. As Aquinas says, "The created intellect of one who sees God is assimilated to what is seen in God, inasmuch as it is united to the Divine essence, in which the similitudes of all things pre-exist." This is merely the process of deification, which is affirmed by nearly all the Church Fathers.

    That does not help the Thomist account. Remember that for Aquinas, the following principle is true:

    (1) X has knowledge of P iff the essence of P is present within X’s intellect

    If you reject this account, then let me know, because I believe that it is pretty standard. And if you accept this account, then it is impossible for anyone to ever know God.


    Why is it impossible? To say that God is present in the intellect is no contradiction, per above. And to say that we can only know essences that are "fully present" within the intellect begs the question, because all other essences are known by a finite mode. God is "fully present" in the intellect by an infinite mode, which means that we can know him more forever. Further, even finite essences that are fully present in the intellect have countless virtual qualities that we do not know. "Fully present in the intellect" does not equal "a total and all-encompassing knowledge" in finite essences, and I don't understand why it should with infinite essences.

    ReplyDelete
  151. Still does not answer my critique, though. To know God is to have his essence in our intellect, which means that God himself is in our intellect, which is impossible. To know God partially is to have part of his essence in our intellect, which means that God has parts, which is impossible.

    You're still confused.

    But it is because we know God finitely that we cannot ever know him at all, because his essence is infinite, and completely surpasses any containment within our intellect, which is the prerequisite for knowledge of anything.

    What is "containment"? Seems like your Kantian theory of knowledge is rearing its head again. Knowledge under Aquinas's system is a conformity of the intellect with the object. It is no contradiction to say that the intellect conforms to God forever, causing the deification process.

    It seems that Aquinas is disagreeing that grace can increase forever, because it "cannot be infinite"

    "Now the potency of a creature to receive is of two kinds. One is natural; and this can be entirely fulfilled, because it extends only to natural perfections. The other is obediential potency, inasmuch as it can receive something from God; and such a capacity cannot be filled, because whatever God does with a creature, it still remains in potency to receive from God. Now a measure which increases when goodness increases is determined by the amount of perfection received rather than by that of the capacity to receive."

    "Even though the charity or grace of a wayfarer can increase to infinity, it can never arrive at equality with the grace of Christ."

    That is to say, grace can increase forever.

    How does this partiality occur in our minds?

    A limitless combination of the soul and God, which cannot possibly reach an end.

    If the Beautific Vision is “beyond temporality”, then it is also beyond any kind of transitional change, because for Aristotle, change is temporality. If that is true, then there is no such thing as a finite being having ever more increasing knowledge of God stretching to eternity, because “ever more increasing X” implies a transition from less knowledge of X to more knowledge of X, which is necessarily a temporal transition, which is supposed to be impossible in something that is “beyond temporality.

    Angels are beyond time, and yet they can change because they are essence-existence hybrids. Subsistent intelligences work the same way. Pretty much all that needs to be said.

    ReplyDelete
  152. Rank & Dguller,

    I've been following this thread and found this marvelous:

    Importantly, because God's essence = his existence, when he enters through grace, we are deified. As grace expands, our deification increases. This is to say that we become increasingly like God forever, while remaining at an infinite distance from him. Again, Hart says that "one is always at the beginning of one's pilgrimage toward him, always discovering and entering into greater dimensions of his beauty."

    And Dguller, is it necessarily true that to know something incompletely is to not know it at all? If that were true, it could be said that I don't know you, which is of course true in some way and false in another. My incomplete knowledge of you doesn't mean that I know some part of you and not others, like a part of your substantial form. It's like the example you drew to me earlier of us knowing what rain is but not exhausting our analysis of it. And this comes out especially when dealing with other persons, and most especially when dealing with The Person.

    ReplyDelete
  153. But you would agree that different virtualities would mean different manifested powers, right?

    You're dealing with logical impossibilities. Virtualities are wholly determined by the actuality in which they are housed. See the trilemma.

    So, what did the pill give to the sick person that actualized the potential “healthy” into actual “healthy”?

    "Equivocal cause". What it is given is not the same as what is received. The pill gave chemicals; health resulted.

    Again, what was given from the arm to the ball? Was it speed?

    Yes.

    What does the pill give to the sick person that actualizes his potential for health?

    Chemicals.

    What was given by A to B from (2) to (3)?

    Depends on the scenario. But what is given is not the same as what is received under equivocal causation--hence the name. The cause and effect do not match up in a normal way.

    Otherwise, it would be completely inert, and thus could not do anything at all, including cause the manifest powers of Y to do X. I mean, if the virtual X really did nothing at all, then its absence would make no difference to the kinds of manifest powers Y can do, and yet it is clear that if you removed the virtual X, then you would lose the power to X, and thus it cannot be as inert as you make it seem.

    Actualities are the only causes. Virtualities are within actualities, wholly determined by actualities, in no way determinative of actualities, and in no way separate from actualities. You cannot remove or change virtualities: this is a logical impossibility. You can remove or change the actuality in which they are housed. That's all.

    I mean, do the powers really flow from the virtual forms? If they do, then these virtual forms are causally efficacious, because they cause the manifest powers of a particular being.

    Virtualities don't cause anything. If they did, then they wouldn't be virtual. And yet they still ground powers. Whether or not you find this intuitive is irrelevant, because it is not contradictory or otherwise fallacious.

    There is no real center of gravity, but it is a useful abstraction that allows us to make accurate predictive calculations of the movement of physical bodies. Are virtual properties the same thing? They are not real, but are fictions of the “equations” of Thomism that are required for its explicative power to occur?

    If they were fictions, then powers would not exist. Virtualities are implicit aspects of holistic entities, which become explicit only in the mind.

    ReplyDelete
  154. And that is just the point I want to make. That the virtualities are part of what defines what a substantial form is. Different virtualities means different substantial form.

    See the trilemma.

    Did a dinosaur have the power to eat before humans existed to think about its virtual properties? I mean, virtual properties do not actually exist outside of our minds, and thus they could not possibly exist prior to the evolution of minds.

    Yes, dinosaurs had the power to eat humans before humans existed.

    Also, to say that a virtual property is explicit only in the mind does not tell us that implicit virtualities do not exist prior to contemplation. It also does not tell us that these implicit virtualities cannot result in powers, because the only real cause in this scenario is actuality.

    Again, this just begs the question of what you want to call a “whole being”. Would you consider the planet earth a “whole being”? If you do, then all of its parts are virtual, including you and me! And if you don’t, then why not? What is the criterion by which you decide what counts as a “whole being”?

    It doesn't beg any question. We're talking about holistic substances. The world is a substance. (No, we are not virtually within the earth.) And, when we aren't talking about substances, we're still talking about holistic entities.

    They content skirts along the edge of nonsense by a fine razor’s edge.

    I don't deny that they're extremely complex. However, after all the studying I've had to do for this discussion, they make sense to me. They're difficult but not impossible.

    What does “actual in some determinate way” mean? What other way can X actually be? Can you provide some examples here? I think that a lot hinges on this Z issue.

    Determinate means "something is something". To say that something is actual in a determinate way is to say, for instance, that a lump of matter is determined by the form of a stone. Here, we must affirm the law of identity. By saying "F1 qua Z" I was merely trying to emphasize that F1 was not indeterminately actual (which is impossible), but was actual in some determinate way. This brings us back to the trilemma.

    Really? Is it impossible to conceive of a triangle, then adding an extra side to make a square?

    That wouldn't be an alteration of a virtual property. Rather, it would be a substantial change, during which time the triangle would be destroyed.

    I am making the same logical point that you are, i.e. that if X has different virtual properties than Y, then X necessarily has a different substantial form than Y. If you agree with this principle, then we are good, but there is the implication that the virtual properties define what substantial form X has, which means that they are not insignificant and inert and useless bits of the substantial form, but are actually its core and essential features.

    Only if you accept A) a circular definition or B) reductionism. Otherwise, no.

    So, what exactly do you mean by “quasi-real” and “pre-real”?

    Implicit within a determining actuality.

    So, I don’t think that your division between interior virtualities and external powers is necessarily complete. And if you are arguing that you do not ever observe virtualities but do observe powers, then you would be incorrect, I think, because you never observe powers either, but rather infer them based upon the observed behavior of substances.

    Maybe. It's tough to say. From what I've read, powers (and properties) are what we see manifested, and to say that X has a power (or property) to do Y prior to actualizing Y is to speak in an imperfect way about virtualities.

    ReplyDelete
  155. A power to do X springs from an actualized form, which just is an actualized primary actuality, at least as far as I understand it. And once that primary actuality is actualized, then you have a variety of powers coming into existence that are associated with the virtual properties of the primary actuality. And what X is is what X can do, which means that formal causes and final causes are just two sides of the same coin.

    Water is not water merely because it is wet, and gold is not gold merely because it is yellow. Water is water because it is "a liquid with the chemical constituents H2O"; gold is gold because it is "a metal with atomic number 79". These are not final causes, but are rather the source of final causes. Again, you need to read Real Essentialism.

    I do not mind that virtualities are primary and powers are secondary. My only point was that you cannot have a particular set of virtualities without necessarily having a particular set of powers. It makes no sense to talk about virtualities without also talking about powers, much like it makes no sense to talk about formal causes without also talking about final causes, because they two are necessarily connected. And remember, a substance can have a power without actually ever using it.

    True.

    First, what did the sun give to the earth that caused the earth to heat up? Did the sun give hotness, heat, or what?

    The sun gives off heat, which causes hotness on the earth.

    It cannot be X(A), because then B could never have received it, since X(A) is not the proper mode in which X can be received into B, i.e. it is not X(B). It cannot be X(B), because A did not have X(B) to begin with, but only had X(A), and the principle of proportionate causality says that A could not give what it does not have. So, if A did not have X(B), then A could not give X(B).

    What A gives is received differently according to the mode of the receiver, just as God's gift of esse to an essence is received according to the essence. In equivocal causation, it is not necessary (except with God) for the giver to contain the receiver; rather, something is given by one mode and received by another. Heat is given by the sun's mode, but it is received by the various modes of the entities that receive it. Medicine gives "health" by one mode, but it is received by a different mode than the one in which it is given.

    But health in the pill (i.e. H(Pill)) is different from health in the person (i.e. H(Person)). H(Pill) is a different mode than H(Person). So, my question remains: what is given, H(Pill) or H(Person)?

    Health is given by one mode and received by another. The pill does not give itself (even though the pill is destroyed), but rather gives a power toward health in an equivocal fashion. This is to say that it gives it by the mode proper to it qua pill. It is received by the mode proper to the human qua human.

    ReplyDelete
  156. First, Aquinas has lots of definitions of “essence”. Sometimes as form or nature, and sometimes as substance. Prime matter is not a form or a substance, but it does have a nature, i.e. pure potency, which is distinct from pure non-being.

    In this situation, he is using "essence" in the holistic sense, and not as a stand-in for "form".

    Second, if essence is only about form-matter composites, then does it follow that angels lack an essence, that mathematical concepts, such as triangles, lack an essence? That would be quite odd, I think.

    I forgot to mention that angels would be included as well, because they are considered to be immaterial substances. In essence, whatever is on the Porphyrian tree is an essence in the sense that Aquinas wishes to describe.

    Aquinas: “Hence by ideas are understood the forms of things, existing apart from the things themselves” (ST Ia.15.1).

    "For an idea, properly speaking is related to a thing in so far as it can be brought into existence; an matter cannot come into existence without a form, nor can a form come into existence without matter. Hence, properly speaking, there is no idea corresponding merely to matter or merely to form".

    http://dhspriory.org/thomas/QDdeVer3.htm#5

    But wait. If prime matter is virtually distinct, then it is in the same group as all other forms or exemplars within God’s intellect, because they all are virtually distinct.

    It is virtually distinct within a virtual distinction. This is complex, but not contradictory.

    Furthermore, if it can be considered in the abstract, then it must be considered as having some kind of distinguishing properties, such as being pure potentiality, being the subject of an actualizing form, being distinct from non-being, and so on. Those are the properties that define what prime matter is, and thus must correspond to its essence/form/nature.

    We can somewhat understand prime matter without positing an essence for it. If we can, then why can't God?

    ReplyDelete
  157. Rank:

    To have an essence in the intellect merely means that it is in intellectus and available for contemplation.

    Exactly. The essence must be contained within the intellect. The divine essence cannot be contained within the intellect, because wherever God’s essence is, his existence is necessarily there, as well -- since God’s essence is his existence -- and thus God himself would have to be fully present within the intellect, which is impossible, because he is infinite and transcendent, and cannot be contained by any finite being, even one blessed with grace.

    When God enters through grace (which can expand an infinite amount), we can have an ever greater understanding of him in contemplation, because his infinite essence is within the intellect.

    Even with infinite grace, the blessed human being remains a non-divine being. No matter how much infinity is pumped into the blessed, they remain human beings, and thus necessarily non-divine. Remember that a divine being is characterized by simplicity, perfection, eternity and immutability. Only God can have these qualities, and thus no human being can have these qualities, and without those qualities, no human being can truly contain God’s essence within his or her intellect.

    As Aquinas says, “Whoever sees God in essence, sees that which in God infinitely exists and is infinitely knowable, but this infinite mode does not belong to the one seeing such that he himself should know infinitely” (ST 1a.12.7). In other words, the “infinite mode” that is only possessed by God cannot possibly possessed by a created being, which necessarily has a finite mode of being, even with grace and the light of glory.

    Here's an analogy: return to the example of possessing the three axioms "all at once" in the intellect, in which every conclusion is seen. Now imagine that the conclusions are infinite. Now imagine that your understanding can keep expanding. That gives you a general idea.

    But it is a bad analogy, because to have God all at once in your intellect would mean to have God himself in your intellect, i.e. not a representation of God, not a similarity or imitation of God, but God himself. It would be like saying that to have the form of “dog” in your intellect, you must have an actual dog within your intellect. You would rightly observe that such a scenario is absurd, because there is no possible way for a material being to actually exist within your immaterial intellect. Similarly, it is impossible for God himself, esse subsistens itself, to fully reside within an intellect, and that is what would have to occur for God’s essence to be contained within an intellect, whether natural or blessed by grace.

    Importantly, because God's essence = his existence, when he enters through grace, we are deified. As grace expands, our deification increases. This is to say that we become increasingly like God forever, while remaining at an infinite distance from him. Again, Hart says that "one is always at the beginning of one's pilgrimage toward him, always discovering and entering into greater dimensions of his beauty."

    But what does it mean to become like God? How can you get closer to something that is always infinitely far away? The meaning of “getting closer” is reducing the distance between X and Y. If the distance between X and Y is always infinite, then there is no such thing as getting closer at all. And that applies to this idea of becoming “increasingly like God forever”. If God always remains infinitely distant and transcendent, then you cannot “increasingly” become like God.

    ReplyDelete
  158. And does that even matter? After all, in order for God to be within our intellect, we would have to become God himself – i.e. not a likeness of God, but God himself – but that would mean that there would be two Gods, which Aquinas already showed to be impossible. Again, you are trying to make a contradiction seem consistent, but it isn’t. It isn’t enough to become like God in order to have God’s essence within our intellect. Rather, we must become God himself to have God’s essence within our intellect, which is impossible, because there is always an infinite distance between us and God, as you described.

    Further, it is no contradiction to say that God himself enters the intellect, or that the intellect in some way transforms into God.

    That is the kicker, though. “In some way”. In what way? How can the intellect turn into God himself and yet remain infinitely distant from God? That would be like saying that we have arrived at our destination, but still have 1,000 miles to go.

    As Aquinas says, "The created intellect of one who sees God is assimilated to what is seen in God, inasmuch as it is united to the Divine essence, in which the similitudes of all things pre-exist." This is merely the process of deification, which is affirmed by nearly all the Church Fathers.

    Then I’m confused. Either (1) we increasingly become like God, which also implies that we never actually become God, or (2) we actually become God. You cannot endorse both (1) and (2) at the same time, because they contradict one another. If you become God, as in (2), then you are not increasingly like God, as in (1), but rather you are God himself. There is no similarity or likeness involved, but rather identity.

    But again, there are problems with both (1) and (2). The problem with (1) is that the only way for God’s essence to be within an intellect is if that intellect is God himself, and this is impossible if God always remains infinitely far away from the person blessed by grace, because there is always an infinite gap between the finite person and God himself. The problem with (2) is that if the person’s intellect becomes God himself, then that completely obliterates the identity of the finite owner of the intellect, and leaves only God. This is because there cannot be more than one God existing. And so, there is no longer any person enjoying the beautific vision at all, because that person no longer exists at all. Only God exists.

    And to say that we can only know essences that are "fully present" within the intellect begs the question, because all other essences are known by a finite mode.

    Aquinas’ entire model of knowledge is saturated with notions of containment and possession by an intellect of essences, forms and natures. Find me a quote of Aquinas that does not endorse this core concept of what it means to know anything. I mean, why does deification even have to happen at all? Because to know X is to contain the essence of X within an intellect, and the only way to know God is to contain his essence within our intellect, which means that we have to become God himself. If the model of containment and possession was not applicable, then why do we have to become deified at all? What is the rationale?

    ReplyDelete
  159. God is "fully present" in the intellect by an infinite mode, which means that we can know him more forever.

    First, for God to be fully present in the intellect, we would have to know God as he knows himself, which we can never do, even with grace, because we are finite created beings.

    Second, Aquinas writes that “no created intellect can know God infinitely. For the created intellect knows the Divine essence more or less perfectly in proportion as it receives a greater or lesser light of glory. Since therefore the created light of glory received into any created intellect cannot be infinite, it is clearly impossible for any created intellect to know God in an infinite degree. Hence it is impossible that it should comprehend God” (ST 1a.12.7). My question is, how can something go on forever, but not be infinite? I mean, “infinite” just means “without limit”, and “forever” also implies “without limit”, then how can you have something without limit that is not without limit?

    Further, even finite essences that are fully present in the intellect have countless virtual qualities that we do not know. "Fully present in the intellect" does not equal "a total and all-encompassing knowledge" in finite essences, and I don't understand why it should with infinite essences.

    Actually, it does. We have to contain the whole essence of X or part of the essence of X within our intellect in order to know anything about X. Neither of these is possible with God. We cannot contain the whole essence of God without becoming God himself, which is impossible if there is always an infinite gap between us and God. We cannot contain a part of God’s essence, because God’s essence has no parts, being metaphysically simple. So, whether you want to go the total containment or partial containment route, neither of them leads anywhere but to absurdity.

    What is "containment"? Seems like your Kantian theory of knowledge is rearing its head again. Knowledge under Aquinas's system is a conformity of the intellect with the object. It is no contradiction to say that the intellect conforms to God forever, causing the deification process.

    As Aquinas writes:

    “For knowledge is regulated according as the thing known is in the knower” (ST 1a.12.4).

    “when any created intellect sees the essence of God, the essence of God itself becomes the intelligible form of the intellect” (ST 1a.12.5)

    “the blessed possess these three things in God; because they see Him, and in seeing Him, possess Him as present, having the power to see Him always; and possessing Him, they enjoy Him as the ultimate fulfilment of desire” (ST 1a.12.7).

    Like I said, it’s all about possession and containment within a particular being, which can only occur in an immaterial intellect, because it is the only thing that can contain forms without becoming what the forms are about. But it would make no sense to Aquinas to say that the intellect knows something without possessing something.

    That is to say, grace can increase forever.

    Again, the problem is that “the created light of glory received into any created intellect cannot be infinite” and yet “the charity or grace of a wayfarer can increase to infinity”. So, either grace can or cannot become infinite. Aquinas seems to contradict himself here.

    A limitless combination of the soul and God, which cannot possibly reach an end.

    And I’ve pointed out the problems here.

    ReplyDelete
  160. Angels are beyond time, and yet they can change because they are essence-existence hybrids. Subsistent intelligences work the same way. Pretty much all that needs to be said.

    Aquinas wrote about time: “This is so because time is nothing less than “the numbering of motion according to before and after”: for we perceive time, as was said, when we count the “before and after” of motion. It is clear therefore that time is not motion, but accompanies motions inasmuch as it is counted. Hence time is the number of motion.” (http://dhspriory.org/thomas/Physics4.htm#17). Since “motion” just means “change”, and change is the transition from potency to act, then to say that something is beyond time means that it is beyond the transition from potency to act, i.e. beyond any change.

    Remember that one of the main reasons why God is immutable is because he is pure actuality: “Now everything which is in any way changed, is in some way in potentiality. Hence it is evident that it is impossible for God to be in any way changeable” (ST 1a.9.1).

    So, to say that something is beyond temporality means that it is beyond change, i.e. is immutable, i.e. is pure actuality. And thus if the beautific vision is beyond temporality, then it cannot be associated with any kind of change from potency to act, which would have to be case for your account to be possible.

    Oh, and Aquinas says that “the movement of an angel is in time” (ST 1a.53.3).

    ReplyDelete
  161. Josh,

    I've been following this thread and found this marvelous:

    Many thanks. While studying deification, I too was bowled over by the sheer beauty of the doctrine. The Church Fathers knew what they were doing.

    Aquinas's rendering of deification the best and most complete I've seen from the Western church. I just wish it was emphasized more often in the Catholic church's current theology and religious practice.

    ReplyDelete
  162. Exactly. The essence must be contained within the intellect. The divine essence cannot be contained within the intellect, because wherever God’s essence is, his existence is necessarily there, as well -- since God’s essence is his existence -- and thus God himself would have to be fully present within the intellect, which is impossible, because he is infinite and transcendent, and cannot be contained by any finite being, even one blessed with grace.

    Again, what is "containment"? You need to drop the Kant. God's essence and existence together are imitated by the intellect during the Beatific Vision.

    Even with infinite grace, the blessed human being remains a non-divine being. No matter how much infinity is pumped into the blessed, they remain human beings, and thus necessarily non-divine.

    This is false. They remain finite; but they most definitely become divine, because God's existence is within them.

    In other words, the “infinite mode” that is only possessed by God cannot possibly possessed by a created being, which necessarily has a finite mode of being, even with grace and the light of glory.

    All that means is that we cannot ever see God as he sees himself, because he sees himself as he is himself, while we see him as we are ourselves.

    "But no created intellect can attain to that perfect mode of the knowledge of the Divine intellect whereof it is intrinsically capable. Which thus appears--Everything is knowable according to its actuality. But God, whose being is infinite, as was shown above (Article 7) is infinitely knowable. Now no created intellect can know God infinitely. For the created intellect knows the Divine essence more or less perfectly in proportion as it receives a greater or lesser light of glory."

    God is "infinitely knowable", which is to say that we cannot ever reach the end of knowing him. Further, God knows himself because he is himself (essence = existence), which means that his knowledge is identical to his existence. But this means that, for anything other than God, it is impossible to know all of God. Things other than God are finite and contingent, and so must know God through a finite mode. This finite mode knows through grace and through intellectual imitation, neither of which can end.

    But it is a bad analogy, because to have God all at once in your intellect would mean to have God himself in your intellect, i.e. not a representation of God, not a similarity or imitation of God, but God himself. It would be like saying that to have the form of “dog” in your intellect, you must have an actual dog within your intellect. You would rightly observe that such a scenario is absurd, because there is no possible way for a material being to actually exist within your immaterial intellect. Similarly, it is impossible for God himself, esse subsistens itself, to fully reside within an intellect, and that is what would have to occur for God’s essence to be contained within an intellect, whether natural or blessed by grace.

    A dog appearing in the intellect would be absurd because a dog is material. God is not material. Also, again, there is no "containment" in this situation. The intellect becomes increasingly like God, and God's existence is infinitely knowable; and therefore the soul becomes deified forever.

    But what does it mean to become like God? How can you get closer to something that is always infinitely far away? The meaning of “getting closer” is reducing the distance between X and Y. If the distance between X and Y is always infinite, then there is no such thing as getting closer at all. And that applies to this idea of becoming “increasingly like God forever”. If God always remains infinitely distant and transcendent, then you cannot “increasingly” become like God.

    It is not a contradiction. It's a paradox, like Hilbert's Hotel. But, regardless of its weirdness, it is not logically fallacious.

    ReplyDelete
  163. After all, in order for God to be within our intellect, we would have to become God himself – i.e. not a likeness of God, but God himself – but that would mean that there would be two Gods, which Aquinas already showed to be impossible.

    There cannot be two Gods because anything with all of God's attributes would be indistinguishable from God. But it does not follow that a finite being cannot gain ever greater knowledge of something infinite. If something finite tries to know the infinite, it will always be infinitely far away no matter how close you get, because the finite being understands it according to a finite mode. And, because God goes where knowledge of God goes, it follows that it's perfectly consistent for an intellect to become increasingly like God as it understands God more.

    It isn’t enough to become like God in order to have God’s essence within our intellect. Rather, we must become God himself to have God’s essence within our intellect, which is impossible, because there is always an infinite distance between us and God, as you described.

    As Hart says, there is an infinite distance, but God is also the distance itself. Anyway, we become "God himself" in one sense, but, because we remain finite, it is impossible ever to finish the journey. We become "gods", so to speak. As St. Irenaeus says, "If the Word became a man, it was so men may become gods."

    That is the kicker, though. “In some way”. In what way? How can the intellect turn into God himself and yet remain infinitely distant from God? That would be like saying that we have arrived at our destination, but still have 1,000 miles to go.

    And that's exactly what it's like. Hilbert's Hotel, again.

    But again, there are problems with both (1) and (2). The problem with (1) is that the only way for God’s essence to be within an intellect is if that intellect is God himself, and this is impossible if God always remains infinitely far away from the person blessed by grace, because there is always an infinite gap between the finite person and God himself.

    Again, in Hart's words, God is infinitely far away, but he is also the distance that the finite traverses in the process. God's essence in the intellect cannot ever be fully known, because it is "infinitely knowable". As a result, something very much like Hilbert's Hotel obtains.

    The problem with (2) is that if the person’s intellect becomes God himself, then that completely obliterates the identity of the finite owner of the intellect, and leaves only God.

    (2) is not something endorsed by any traditional Christian denomination, as far as I know. Sounds kind of like Buddhism, if anything. (1) is definitely the position of the Church Fathers and of Aquinas, and I don't believe that it contains any contradictions.

    Because to know X is to contain the essence of X within an intellect, and the only way to know God is to contain his essence within our intellect, which means that we have to become God himself. If the model of containment and possession was not applicable, then why do we have to become deified at all? What is the rationale?

    It isn't a matter of containment or possession, but of conformity. To know something in its essence is for the intellect to conform to that essence. As Aristotle says, "the soul is in a way all things". Aquinas abides by this theory. As a result, it makes perfect sense to say that man can become deified without containing God, because his intellect is always imitating God to a fuller degree.

    ReplyDelete
  164. First, for God to be fully present in the intellect, we would have to know God as he knows himself

    Since when? I don't see why this would be necessary.

    My question is, how can something go on forever, but not be infinite? I mean, “infinite” just means “without limit”, and “forever” also implies “without limit”, then how can you have something without limit that is not without limit?

    Aquinas offers this comparison: "Even though the charity or grace of a wayfarer can increase to infinity, it can never arrive at equality with the grace of Christ. That something finite can by a continuous increase attain to any finite degree however great, is true if the same sort of quantity is referred to in both of the finite factors (for example, if we compare a line to a line or whiteness to whiteness), but not if different sorts of quantity are referred to. This is evident in dimensive quantity; for no matter how much a line is increased in length, it will never reach the width of a surface."

    Actually, it does. We have to contain the whole essence of X or part of the essence of X within our intellect in order to know anything about X. Neither of these is possible with God. We cannot contain the whole essence of God without becoming God himself, which is impossible if there is always an infinite gap between us and God.

    You just dodged my point, though. As I said, we can know the axioms without all of their conclusions being present to us. Through logic, we can work these out; but we cannot ever hope to see the end of them in one lifetime. Likewise, we can know the essence of a finite being without ever knowing everything entailed by that essence.

    In any case, God's essence is infinite, and so its presence in the intellect is "infinitely knowable". This means that we cannot know all of it through a finite mode. It also means that we can always become infinitely more like God through deification. It does not mean that we know nothing of God, nor that we only know part of God; only that a finite being cannot hope to know all of God, even though its understanding (and therefore likeness) continues forever.

    “when any created intellect sees the essence of God, the essence of God itself becomes the intelligible form of the intellect”

    Exactly. Does this sound like containment to you? The intellect transforms into God, but, unlike with finite essences, it cannot ever stop transforming and reach a comprehensive view.

    So, either grace can or cannot become infinite. Aquinas seems to contradict himself here.

    See above with his talk of dimensions.

    And thus if the beautific vision is beyond temporality, then it cannot be associated with any kind of change from potency to act, which would have to be case for your account to be possible.

    Hmmm... I screwed up there. Sorry. I had assumed that Aquinas put "time" and "matter" on the same level.

    In this case, I see no reason why Aquinas and Hart do not match up, according to your view that Hart was describing the temporality of the finite against the "horizon" of the infinite distance of God.

    ReplyDelete
  165. Rank:

    Again, what is "containment"? You need to drop the Kant. God's essence and existence together are imitated by the intellect during the Beatific Vision.

    I didn’t even know that Kant thought such a thing.

    Everything that I have ever read about how the intellect knows anything, according to Aquinas, has involved talk of containment and possession. A form is abstracted by the active intellect from sensible species, for example, and then contained within the passive intellect as a kind of reservoir. In other words, the form is possessed/contained first by the active intellect, and then the form is possessed/contained by the passive intellect. That is Aquinas’ account of knowledge.

    When Aquinas says that the intellect imitates an external X, what he means is that the intellect contains the form of X in an immaterial fashion whereas X contains its form in a material fashion. After all, imitation implies similarity, and similarity implies partial identity and partial difference. The partial identity is the same form, and the partial difference is the mode of that form, i.e. immaterial versus material.

    So, to say that a finite intellect can know God’s essence necessarily implies that God’s essence must be contained within the finite intellect in question. You seem to agree that this is impossible, and so you are trying to revise Aquinas’ definition of knowledge into something like:

    (1) X knows that P iff X’s intellect imitates (= is similar to = is like) P

    And that is fine, because there is a sense in which that is absolutely correct and valid. However, you then have to spell out the partial identity and partial difference between X and P. So, what is partially identical between a person’s intellect and God? I think we will agree that what is different is that a person is finite and imperfect and God is infinite and perfect.

    This is false. They remain finite; but they most definitely become divine, because God's existence is within them.

    But “divine” just means “infinite, perfect, and simple existence”. For a human to become divine, a finite, imperfect and complex being would have to become an infinite, perfect and simple being, and yet still remain finite, imperfect and complex! Of course, this is impossible, and it still looks like you are endorsing a contradiction as much as if you endorsed a square triangle. It does not matter how much you keep repeating those words, they still contradict one another.

    All that means is that we cannot ever see God as he sees himself, because he sees himself as he is himself, while we see him as we are ourselves.

    And that’s the problem. In order to know God’s essence, we would have to know God as he knows himself, which is impossible, because we are finite and he is infinite.

    ReplyDelete
  166. God is "infinitely knowable", which is to say that we cannot ever reach the end of knowing him. Further, God knows himself because he is himself (essence = existence), which means that his knowledge is identical to his existence. But this means that, for anything other than God, it is impossible to know all of God. Things other than God are finite and contingent, and so must know God through a finite mode. This finite mode knows through grace and through intellectual imitation, neither of which can end.

    The bottom line is that we cannot know God as he knows himself, because he is simple, infinite and perfect, and we are composite, finite and imperfect, and thus all that we know is similarly marked with those limitations by virtue of our nature. And if we cannot know God as he knows himself, then we cannot know God, because to know God is to know God’s essence, and that means that his essence must be present within our intellect, which we both agree is impossible, because if his essence is in our intellect, then so is his existence, and that means that we have God himself within our intellect, which is impossible. The only alternative is for part of God’s essence to be within our intellect, but you will also agree that this is impossible, because God has no parts. So, if we cannot contain all of God’s essence or some of God’s essence, then the only alternative is that we cannot contain any of God’s essence in our intellect, and thus we cannot know God at all.

    Honestly, this is an airtight case. Your only way around it would be to show that Aquinas’ theory of knowledge does not involve containment or possession of forms/essences/natures. Good luck with that.

    A dog appearing in the intellect would be absurd because a dog is material. God is not material. Also, again, there is no "containment" in this situation. The intellect becomes increasingly like God, and God's existence is infinitely knowable; and therefore the soul becomes deified forever.

    First, the problem is that what exists in the intellect as a form of knowledge must be an essence distinct from its existence, otherwise, you would have an actually existing entity within the intellect, which is absurd. This is only possible for composite beings, because you can have their essence without their existence. This is impossible for God, because his essence is his existence, and thus this entire model of knowledge falls apart if you want to say that we can know God’s essence.

    Second, I agree that there is no containment in that situation, and that is the problem. Without containment, you cannot have knowledge. As Feser writes: “when the intellect understands something, it grasps its form. And that means that one and the same thing, namely the form of the thing understood, exists both in the intellect and in the thing itself” (Aquinas, p. 148).

    It is not a contradiction. It's a paradox, like Hilbert's Hotel. But, regardless of its weirdness, it is not logically fallacious.

    It is a contradiction. What does “getting closer” mean here? My contention is that it means nothing, because you cannot get closer to something that is infinitely far away. After all, “X is getting closer to Y” just means “narrowing the distance between X and Y”, and thus if you cannot possibly narrow the distance between X and Y, then you cannot possibly say that X is getting closer to Y. What is your definition of “X is getting closer to Y”?

    ReplyDelete
  167. And, because God goes where knowledge of God goes, it follows that it's perfectly consistent for an intellect to become increasingly like God as it understands God more.

    Again, to understand God is to contain God’s essence within our intellect. If you agree that this is impossible, then understanding God is impossible. Furthermore, you have to explain what it means “for an intellect to become increasingly like God as it understands God more”. What does this “likeness” involve? What is partially identical between God and a finite intellect? What is partially different between God and a finite intellect?

    Anyway, we become "God himself" in one sense, but, because we remain finite, it is impossible ever to finish the journey. We become "gods", so to speak. As St. Irenaeus says, "If the Word became a man, it was so men may become gods."

    We become God himself in no sense, because God necessarily is the simple, perfect and infinite subsistent ground of all being. We cannot possible have any of these qualities. Furthermore, we cannot possibly even have only some of these qualities, because they exist as a holistic unit, each necessarily implying the other. Also, we cannot have part of these qualities, because God is metaphysically simple, and thus has no parts. And even if we become gods, it does not follow that we are like God, because the God of classical theism is not a god at all, as Feser has often said. So, the whole account is just muddled, no matter the pedigree of its adherents.

    And that's exactly what it's like. Hilbert's Hotel, again.

    It’s not. At least with Hilbert’s hotel, there was a clear sense to what it meant to have a room occupied. Here, there is no clear sense to what it means to have our intellect become God himself, which would mean that our intellect becomes God’s intellect, and still remain our finite intellect. So, there is a contradiction at the start, before we even get into the paradoxes of infinity.

    Again, in Hart's words, God is infinitely far away, but he is also the distance that the finite traverses in the process. God's essence in the intellect cannot ever be fully known, because it is "infinitely knowable". As a result, something very much like Hilbert's Hotel obtains.

    As I mentioned earlier, and you seem to have endorsed, there is no sense to a “process” when one exists beyond temporality, because temporality is necessarily related to change from potency to act, which is impossible outside of time as only immutability and pure actuality occurs. So, again, the account is incoherent, because it demands change and development where change and development are impossible.

    (2) is not something endorsed by any traditional Christian denomination, as far as I know. Sounds kind of like Buddhism, if anything. (1) is definitely the position of the Church Fathers and of Aquinas, and I don't believe that it contains any contradictions.

    Okay, so the position of Aquinas and the Church Fathers is that we increasingly become like God in the afterlife if we are blessed with the light of glory and grace. Good. So, then perhaps you can answer the multitude of problems associated with this account? For example, what is partially identical between God and a finite intellect, what it means to become more like God in a finite being that could possibly have God’s qualities, what it means to draw closer to something that you cannot possibly reach, and so on.

    ReplyDelete
  168. It isn't a matter of containment or possession, but of conformity. To know something in its essence is for the intellect to conform to that essence. As Aristotle says, "the soul is in a way all things". Aquinas abides by this theory. As a result, it makes perfect sense to say that man can become deified without containing God, because his intellect is always imitating God to a fuller degree.

    First, you have to explain what is partially identical when you say that an intellect is like an object known. I say, and I think Aquinas says, that what is partly identical is the form that exists within an intellect and within a known object, because the form is exactly the same, as Feser says. What is your explanation?

    Second, what Aristotle meant was that the intellect can possess the forms of multiple entities without actually becoming those entities, which is how it can “in a way” be “all things”. And if that is what he meant, then it makes no sense to say that a man can become deified without containing God, because that is as impossible as a square being a triangle.

    Since when? I don't see why this would be necessary.

    Because to know God is to have his essence be present in one’s intellect. To have God’s essence be present in one’s intellect means that God himself must be present in one’s intellect, which is impossible. The only way to know God’s essence is to be able to know God as God knows himself, because it is impossible to know God via a finite intellect, as I just demonstrated. So, if you want to say that a human can know God, then that human must become the divine intellect, which is impossible.

    That something finite can by a continuous increase attain to any finite degree however great, is true if the same sort of quantity is referred to in both of the finite factors (for example, if we compare a line to a line or whiteness to whiteness), but not if different sorts of quantity are referred to. This is evident in dimensive quantity; for no matter how much a line is increased in length, it will never reach the width of a surface."

    First, we are not talking about “something finite” continuously increasing “to any finite degree”, but rather something finite increasing to an infinite degree.

    Second, for the analogy to work, there must be “the same sort of quantity” in God and in the intellect. What would this be?

    Third, it does not resolve the contradiction between saying that X goes on forever, but X is not infinite. They both necessarily imply “no limit”, and so ultimately it comes down to saying that X has no limit, but X has a limit, which is contradictory, unless the limit in the former is different from the limit in the latter. That would work with the line and surface example. The line has no limit with respect to length, but the line does have a limit with respect to width. So, what is the limit involved in “forever” that is different from the limit involved in “infinite”? It seems that the limit involved in “forever” is a temporal limit, and thus “forever” is simply “temporal infinity”. If that is true, then what you have is temporal infinity without infinity, which seems like saying triangular shape without shape, which is clearly incoherent.

    ReplyDelete
  169. You just dodged my point, though. As I said, we can know the axioms without all of their conclusions being present to us. Through logic, we can work these out; but we cannot ever hope to see the end of them in one lifetime. Likewise, we can know the essence of a finite being without ever knowing everything entailed by that essence.

    Of course we can know the essence of a finite thing without knowing everything about the essence. But that could be because we have the full essence in our intellect, but are simply unable to unpack its properties fully, and thus have incomplete understanding, or because we have part of the essence in our intellect, which corresponds to only some of its properties. None of this is possible with God, as I’ve argued many times above. God’s essence is his existence, and his essence has no parts, and both of these principles make possession within an intellect impossible.

    And bringing in axioms has nothing to do with it. The issue is not just how a finite being can know something infinite. The issue is how a finite being can know an infinite, perfect and simple being that is subsistent existence itself.

    In any case, God's essence is infinite, and so its presence in the intellect is "infinitely knowable". This means that we cannot know all of it through a finite mode.

    And the problem is that to know God is to know all of him. How could you know part of God if God has no parts? He is all-or-nothing by virtue of his divine simplicity. He is either totally there or not there at all, because he cannot partly be there due to his divine simplicity.

    It also means that we can always become infinitely more like God through deification.

    But you can’t, because the beautific vision occurs outside of temporality, and thus outside of any kind of change, including that from being less like God to being more like God, which implies a transition of some kind.

    It does not mean that we know nothing of God, nor that we only know part of God;

    Yes, it does.

    only that a finite being cannot hope to know all of God, even though its understanding (and therefore likeness) continues forever.

    If a finite being cannot know all of God, then a finite being cannot know God, because to know God is to have God’s essence within one’s intellect. You yourself agree that this is impossible, which should end the matter, but you have a different understanding of what it means for Aquinas to say “X knows P”, which involves X being similar to P, and that means that X is partially identical to P and X is partially different from P. The question was what X could have in common with P in the partial identity. My contention is that this must correspond to the form in X being the same as the form in P. In fact, that is what Feser seems to argue. It seems that you have a different idea. What could it be?

    Exactly. Does this sound like containment to you? The intellect transforms into God, but, unlike with finite essences, it cannot ever stop transforming and reach a comprehensive view.

    It depends upon what is meant by the “intelligible form of the intellect”. I take Aquinas as meaning that the essence of God is the intelligible form that is contained in the intellect, which I take as a proper interpretation, because his account of knowledge is saturated by concepts of containment and possession.

    Furthermore, even if you are correct, it is only because a containment account is presupposed to justify your claim. Why does the finite intellect have to become the divine intellect in order for the finite intellect to know God at all? Because the finite intellect cannot contain the divine essence. That is also why the finite intellect has to be supplemented and suffused with grace and the light of glory in order to bring it into a supernatural state that is capable of containing the divine essence, but only by becoming the divine essence, i.e. via deification. Without containment, none of this makes any sense.

    ReplyDelete
  170. Finally, if “the intellect transforms into God”, then how can it not “reach a comprehensive view”? After all, God himself knows all of himself in a comprehensive way, and thus if the intellect has become the divine intellect, then how could it not “reach a comprehensive view”? Again, God is metaphysically simple, and thus it makes no sense to say that part of God becomes the intellect. Only the entirety of God can become the intellect, and thus the intellect has become the divine intellect, which certainly would have comprehensive knowledge of God.

    In this case, I see no reason why Aquinas and Hart do not match up, according to your view that Hart was describing the temporality of the finite against the "horizon" of the infinite distance of God.

    But then they don’t match up at all, because Hart’s account presupposes a temporal process of change that occurs during the beautific vision, and if Aquinas’ account implies that the beautific vision occurs outside of time, then there is no such thing as a temporal process of change at all during the beautific vision. I actually do not know if the beautific vision occurs in a temporal or atemporal context, and so I’m not too sure, but it seems that it would have to be temporal for Hart’s account to be remotely plausible.

    Furthermore, here’s what Aquinas says that “the knowledge of the angels and of the souls of the saints can go on increasing until the day of judgment, even as other things pertaining to the accidental reward. But afterwards it will increase no more, because then will be the final state of things, and in that state it is possible that all will know everything that God knows by the knowledge of vision” (ST supplement.92.3). This completely contradicts your account, because it seems that it only holds until the day of judgment, and then afterwards “will be the final state of things” in which “all will know everything that God knows”, which seems to imply that the blessed will have to become God, because that is the only way for them to know “everything that God knows”.

    But even though “all the blessed will know all that God knows by the knowledge of vision, yet so that not all will see all in the Divine essence” (Ibid.), which means that one can know everything that God knows but not “see all in the Divine essence”. I would love to know how that is possible! After all, to know everything that God knows would be to have his knowledge, but due to divine simplicity, his knowledge is his essence, and thus one must also “see all in the divine essence”. If you cannot see all in the divine essence, then you cannot know all that God knows. To see and know one is to see and know the other, because they are ultimately the same thing.

    Again, just contradictory.

    ReplyDelete
  171. Seems like we've settled the trouble with the virtual distinction, then. This issue with the Beatific Vision is based on your misunderstanding of Aquinas's theory of knowledge, among a few other things--I'll provide more details tomorrow.

    ReplyDelete
  172. Rank:

    We'll get back to the virtual distinction later, I hope. I don't have enough time to have more than one extensive discussion. Rest assured, you've answered probably most of my concerns and questions about virtuality, though!

    ReplyDelete
  173. I’m looking forward to you showing how Aquinas’ theory of knowledge does not in any way require the possession or containment of essences within an immaterial intellect such that for X to know P necessarily implies that the essence of P is within the intellect of X. Personally, I don’t think this is possible, because Aquinas always seems to imply possession and containment of forms within an intellect in his account of knowledge. Here’s some examples:

    “the higher an intellectual substance is in perfection, the more universal are the intelligible forms it possesses. Of all the intellectual substances, consequently, the human intellect, which we have called possible, has forms of the least universality. This is the reason it receives its intelligible forms from sensible things.” (CT 81)

    “Once the possible intellect has been perfected by the intelligible species, it is called the habitual intellect (intellectus in habitu), for then it possesses intelligible species in such a way that it can use them at will; in other words, it possesses them in a fashion that is midway between pure potency and complete act.” (CT 83)

    “something is known by a knower by reason of the fact that the thing known is, in some fashion, in the possession of the knower. Hence it is said in The Soul that the soul is "in some manner, all things," since its nature is such that it can know all things.” (DV 2.2)

    “Intelligent beings are distinguished from non-intelligent beings in that the latter possess only their own form; whereas the intelligent being is naturally adapted to have also the form of some other thing; for the idea of the thing known is in the knower. (ST 1a.14.1)

    “the more immaterially a thing receives the form of the thing known, the more perfect is its knowledge.” (ST 1a.84.2)

    “An external thing understood by us does not exist in our intellect according to its own nature; rather, it is necessary that its species be in our intellect.” (SCG 1.53)

    And on and on.

    ReplyDelete
  174. And here’s a few more quotes from Thomist scholars:

    Davies: “When knowledge or understanding occurs, forms come into being which are, not the forms of individual material things, but the forms of these things considered as objects of knowledge … And they come to be in us.” (The Thought of Thomas Aquinas, p. 127).

    Feser: “The A-T claim isn't that intellects are among the things that have more than one form at a time and can have a form without being the kind of thing the form is a form of -- which would leave open the question of whether in the case of God, it is something other than an intellect which does all this. No, to have an intellect just is to have forms in that way.” (http://edwardfeser.blogspot.ca/2012/02/review-of-atkins-and-feyerabend.html)

    Stump: “The intellect is all things in the sense that it can receive the forms of all things in a suitably encoded mode. Precisely because the intellect receives forms in an intentional or encoded fashion, the reception of those forms produces cognition in the intellect …” (Aquinas, p. 275)

    Feser: “when the intellect understands something, it grasps its form. And that means that one and the same thing, namely the form of the thing understood, exists both in the intellect and in the thing itself” (Aquinas, p. 148).

    Feser: “the intellect can possess multiple substantial forms -- “intentionally” -- at the same time, and without ceasing to be an intellect” (http://edwardfeser.blogspot.ca/2012/09/the-divine-intellect.html)

    ReplyDelete
  175. Rank:

    It is virtually distinct within a virtual distinction. This is complex, but not contradictory.

    It is contradictory. If the concept of prime matter exists as a virtual distinction, then there must be something about prime matter that makes it distinct from other virtual concepts. And if there is such a set of distinctive properties that distinguishes the concept of prime matter from other concepts in the divine intellect, then prime matter must have an essence.

    14. But this is impossible, because prime matter is supposed to be the utter absence of distinctive properties, and thus the absence of essence. As Aquinas writes that matter “does not of itself have any traits by which it may be known, since the principle of knowing is form” (http://dhspriory.org/thomas/Metaphysics7.htm), and that “because all knowledge and every definition comes by way of the form, prime matter cannot be defined or known in itself but only through the composite” (http://dhspriory.org/thomas/DePrincNaturae.htm).

    And that is the contradiction. If prime matter is a distinct virtual concept in the divine intellect, then it must have properties or traits or qualities (or whatever) that distinguish the concept of prime matter from the other concepts in the divine intellect. But prime matter is necessarily lacking any properties or traits or qualities (or whatever), because all such distinguishing properties (or whatever) are supposed to be contained with forms. And therefore, prime matter cannot have distinguishing properties (or whatever). But it must have them, because otherwise it cannot be a distinct virtual concept in the divine intellect.

    ReplyDelete
  176. If the concept of prime matter exists as a virtual distinction, then there must be something about prime matter that makes it distinct from other virtual concepts. And if there is such a set of distinctive properties that distinguishes the concept of prime matter from other concepts in the divine intellect, then prime matter must have an essence.

    This is false. Prime matter can be distinct from other things without having an essence. How? Because everything else does have an essence. Prime matter, by being the only thing that simultaneous exists (has being) and has no essence, is in a sense distinguished apophatically. We have subtracted from it every feature, until all that remains is something a bit like differance. (As I have said before, I do not believe that differance is, of itself, a contradictory idea. It is the self-refuting combination of hermeneutics and "semiotic representationalism" that is the problem.)

    Further, it should be remembered that differance, on Derrida's formation, is generally absence or potential. In that sense, even differance is and has a kind of being. And, as Hart said about Heidegger, the question is about the existence of potentiality or actuality in the first place. Even pure potentiality, or differance or Heidegger's absence have some kind of being.

    I'll be back soon to deal with the objections to the Beatific Vision.

    ReplyDelete
  177. Actually, it appears that this combox has automatically changed to moderation-only posts. For the sake of convenience (and Prof. Feser's sanity), we should probably pick this discussion up again in a future combox, if appropriate. I'm glad we were (almost) able to settle the virtual distinction, if nothing else.

    ReplyDelete
  178. Rank:

    This is false. Prime matter can be distinct from other things without having an essence. How? Because everything else does have an essence. Prime matter, by being the only thing that simultaneous exists (has being) and has no essence, is in a sense distinguished apophatically. We have subtracted from it every feature, until all that remains is something a bit like differance.

    If prime matter can have neither an essence nor a form, then it cannot have any distinguishing properties, because distinguishing properties are associated with essence and form: because all knowledge and every definition comes by way of the form, prime matter cannot be defined or known in itself but only through the composite” (http://dhspriory.org/thomas/DePrincNaturae.htm). However, prime matter does have distinguishing properties, i.e. its status as the kind of being that is pure potentiality. And thus, there is a contradiction: prime matter necessarily must have definitive properties (to distinguish it from other divine ideas) and cannot possibly have definitive properties (because all definitive properties are derived from forms and essences, and prime matter cannot have a form or essence).

    I'll be back soon to deal with the objections to the Beatific Vision.

    I’m looking forward to it. Remember what you have to demonstrate, though: that Aquinas’ theory of knowledge does not make it a necessary condition of knowledge that an intellect possesses a form within itself. I’ve provided a number of quotes from Aquinas and Thomists that seems to show that his theory of knowledge does have such a necessary requirement.

    For the sake of convenience (and Prof. Feser's sanity), we should probably pick this discussion up again in a future combox, if appropriate.

    That would be too bad, because I was looking forward to your reply to my criticisms of the beatific vision. Perhaps Feser could let us know if he would prefer that we terminate this discussion until a later date?

    I'm glad we were (almost) able to settle the virtual distinction, if nothing else.

    Yes, that was a positive development, but one thing that bothers me is when you wrote that the earth is a substance, but we cannot be considered to be virtual parts of the earth. If a substance is a holistic unit and its parts necessarily virtual, then why wouldn’t we be virtual parts of the substance that is the earth? Or, does virtuality depend upon what you consider to be a holistic unit to begin with? And if so, then how do you decide what is the holistic unit? The galaxy? The planet? The continent? The person? The cells? The proteins? The DNA? The atoms? The quarks?

    ReplyDelete
  179. However, prime matter does have distinguishing properties, i.e. its status as the kind of being that is pure potentiality. And thus, there is a contradiction: prime matter necessarily must have definitive properties (to distinguish it from other divine ideas) and cannot possibly have definitive properties (because all definitive properties are derived from forms and essences, and prime matter cannot have a form or essence).

    If prime matter is a contradiction, then esse commune (i.e. the totality of created esse) is also a contradiction. Why? Because esse commune has no identity in itself. An actus essendi, considered on its own, is utterly without form or essence. It must follow that God does not have ideas of every possible actus essendi, because these must have distinguishing features, which come from forms. Esse has a nature that is not an essence. Likewise, prime matter has a nature that is not an essence. This is to say that prime matter is parasitic of substances, and that it cannot exist apart from them, even though we can understand the real separation between prime matter and substantial form. It's very similar to essence and existence: one cannot be separated from the other, but both are really different, even though strict "identity" is only applicable to one side. Neither esse nor prime matter has an identity in the strong sense.

    I’m looking forward to it. Remember what you have to demonstrate, though: that Aquinas’ theory of knowledge does not make it a necessary condition of knowledge that an intellect possesses a form within itself. I’ve provided a number of quotes from Aquinas and Thomists that seems to show that his theory of knowledge does have such a necessary requirement.

    The problem is that you've simply misunderstood the entire thing. Certainly the intellect "stores" forms, in that, once it comes into contact with one, it is capable of bringing it back in the future. But that is not what it means to contemplate a form. On A-T, when one contemplates a form, the intellect literally becomes that form. As Aquinas Online says of Aquinas's theory of knowledge in general:

    "In cognition, the actual knowledge is identical with its object. The knower, without losing its physical being, is identical with the object known because it possesses in a unique way the form of the object known. Both subject and object retain their identity, but the subject acquires an additional perfection: the form of the object known. The knower and the object known may be physically distinct while they are cognitively identical."

    Anything that takes on a form or essence becomes that kind of thing. If something takes on the form of a dog, it becomes a dog. The intellect takes on the form of a dog; and, therefore, it becomes a dog. However, this is to say that it does not become a particular dog, because the intellectual dog does not possess "signate matter" (long story that I'm not entirely sure I understand myself). Instead, it is universal "dog-ness" that the intellect becomes.

    ReplyDelete
  180. An intellect contemplating God (essence + existence) would quite literally become God. Simply by grasping his essence, God's unique actus essendi would be united to the intellect. This is not the case with any other entity. However, this union does not destroy the identity, because of the way Aquinas's theory of knowledge works per above. Further, because knowledge of God, grace and deification are all connected, it must follow that the intellect can increase in its likeness to God by increasing its knowledge of God, which can keep going to infinity. God's essence is infinitely complex because it is unlimited; whereas limited essences can be fully grasped by the intellect, God's is "infinitely knowable". Hence, it must also be infinitely "become-able". Every other essence is "finitely become-able" (in a weak sense, because there is no esse transferred) and "finitely knowable".

    Also, your objections to the Hilbert's Hotel paradox do not hold water. In Hilbert's Hotel, we have a building that can hold an infinite number of guests. This means that it can hold any number of guests--including multiple infinities of guests--and still have more. Let me create a paradox similar to this one to illustrate our current situation: Hilbert's Highway. Imagine that we have a highway that is infinitely long, and that a car is driving on it. This car could drive for an infinite amount of time and still have more highway to go. This does not mean that the car has not driven at all--that's a non sequitur. Rather, it is that the car will never stop driving, no matter how far it goes. There is nothing contradictory in this idea, just as there is nothing contradictory in Hilbert's Hotel.

    one thing that bothers me is when you wrote that the earth is a substance, but we cannot be considered to be virtual parts of the earth.

    We are not the earth's matter. Also, on a separate note, I might have been wrong about the earth being a substance. It might actually be an "accidental unity", like a pile of stones. In fact, that kind of seems likely to me--but I really have no idea. I'm going to pass the torch on this one to people with more knowledge of the subject.

    ReplyDelete
  181. Rank:

    If prime matter is a contradiction, then esse commune (i.e. the totality of created esse) is also a contradiction.

    That’s fine, too.

    Because esse commune has no identity in itself. An actus essendi, considered on its own, is utterly without form or essence.

    Why do you say that? Does Aquinas say that? Do Thomists say that?

    Esse has a nature that is not an essence.

    First, it does not matter about essences. It is about forms. Prime matter cannot have a form, and thus cannot have defining properties, and yet it does have defining properties, which means it must have a form. Thus, it is both impossible and necessary that prime matter has a form.

    Second, if esse commune has defining properties, which I think you’ll agree that it does, then it necessarily has a form. I’ve quoted Aquinas as saying that X has defining properties iff X has a form. I would further argue that X has a form iff X has an essence.

    Likewise, prime matter has a nature that is not an essence.

    It also must have a form, which is impossible.

    It's very similar to essence and existence: one cannot be separated from the other, but both are really different, even though strict "identity" is only applicable to one side.

    I still don’t understand what “real distinction” means. If X and Y are really distinct, but X and Y can never be ontologically separate, then what is the difference between real distinction and virtual distinction?

    "In cognition, the actual knowledge is identical with its object. The knower, without losing its physical being, is identical with the object known because it possesses in a unique way the form of the object known. Both subject and object retain their identity, but the subject acquires an additional perfection: the form of the object known. The knower and the object known may be physically distinct while they are cognitively identical."

    It is only identical in the sense of there being the exact same form in the knower and the known. They are not identical in the sense that the knower actually becomes the known. The identity is between the form in intellect and the form in known entity. Read the quotes that I’ve supplied above. They make clear that the knower becomes the known only in the sense that the knower possesses the form of the known within itself. That’s it.

    ReplyDelete
  182. Anything that takes on a form or essence becomes that kind of thing. If something takes on the form of a dog, it becomes a dog. The intellect takes on the form of a dog; and, therefore, it becomes a dog.

    I really think that you are stretching things here. As I said, the entire account of intellect in Thomism is that the intellect is an immaterial entity that can contain and possess forms without becoming what the form is about. Therefore, when it has the form of the dog, it makes no sense to say that it “becomes a dog”. A dog is a material particular entity, and there is no way an immaterial entity can become a material particular entity. You can say that the intellect becomes dog-like, which is true, because it is like a dog in that they both share the form of a dog, but it is incoherent and nonsensical to say that the intellect becomes a dog when it possesses the form of a dog. I suppose God is also a dog, because he contains the form of a dog?

    An intellect contemplating God (essence + existence) would quite literally become God.

    But that contradicts your earlier position. I wrote that you have two choices:

    (1) We increasingly become like God, which also implies that we never actually become God
    (2) We actually become God

    You said that “(1) is definitely the position of the Church Fathers and of Aquinas, and I don't believe that it contains any contradictions.” Now you are saying that we do not “become like God”, but rather “literally become God”, which was (2) above, a position that you said “is not something endorsed by any traditional Christian denomination, as far as I know”. So, does that mean that you now endorse a position rejected by all Christian denominations?

    Simply by grasping his essence, God's unique actus essendi would be united to the intellect. This is not the case with any other entity. However, this union does not destroy the identity, because of the way Aquinas's theory of knowledge works per above.

    But it does destroy the identity of the intellect containing God. After all, to become God would be to become simple, perfect and infinite subsistent being. One could not be simple, perfect and infinite and simultaneously be compound, imperfect and finite. That would result in a gross contradiction. It has to be either one or the other. You either become like God, but not actually become God, which would preserve your identity, or you become God himself, which would obliterate your identity.

    ReplyDelete
  183. Further, because knowledge of God, grace and deification are all connected, it must follow that the intellect can increase in its likeness to God by increasing its knowledge of God, which can keep going to infinity.

    The problem is that the intellect cannot be like God, because that would imply that they shared something in common. What do they share in common? The intellect cannot be identical to part of God, because God has no parts, being metaphysically simple. The intellect cannot be identical to all of God, because then it would become God himself. The intellect cannot be identical to none of God, or else it could not be said to know God at all. So, here’s my trilemma. Whether the intellect is like all of God, some of God, or none of God, you have impossibilities.

    Furthermore, the intellect cannot increase its knowledge during the beatific vision. As Aquinas himself wrote: “the knowledge of the angels and of the souls of the saints can go on increasing until the day of judgment, even as other things pertaining to the accidental reward. But afterwards it will increase no more, because then will be the final state of things, and in that state it is possible that all will know everything that God knows by the knowledge of vision” (ST supplement.92.3). In other words, the intellects of the blessed will increase in knowledge until the day of judgment, and then they cannot increase any longer, which completely contradicts your account.

    Also, your objections to the Hilbert's Hotel paradox do not hold water.

    This is irrelevant. As I said earlier, the objection is not about how a finite being can know an infinite being, but rather how a compound, imperfect and finite intellect can possess and contain a simple, perfect and infinite subsistent being without fully becoming that simple, perfect and infinite subsistent being.

    Hilbert's Highway. Imagine that we have a highway that is infinitely long, and that a car is driving on it. This car could drive for an infinite amount of time and still have more highway to go. This does not mean that the car has not driven at all--that's a non sequitur.

    The issue is not whether the car is driving or not. Of course, it is driving. The issue is whether you can coherently say that the car is getting closer to its destination in such a scenario. My contention is that you cannot, because “getting closer” means “less distance between yourself and the destination”, and this is impossible if the destination is infinitely far away. So, to say that you are closer to God despite him being infinitely far away is to say something nonsensical, like saying that you are naked while clothed.

    We are not the earth's matter. Also, on a separate note, I might have been wrong about the earth being a substance. It might actually be an "accidental unity", like a pile of stones. In fact, that kind of seems likely to me--but I really have no idea. I'm going to pass the torch on this one to people with more knowledge of the subject.

    Fair enough. I’ve always wondered what the criteria that determinates what things around us count as “substance” or a “holistic unity” are. Maybe someone else can let us know. However, I think that this lacunae in your account severely compromises it, because your entire account of virtuality presupposes holistic unities, and if you have no good account of holistic unities, then you cannot have a good account of virtuality, either.

    ReplyDelete
  184. First, it does not matter about essences. It is about forms. Prime matter cannot have a form, and thus cannot have defining properties, and yet it does have defining properties, which means it must have a form. Thus, it is both impossible and necessary that prime matter has a form.

    Second, if esse commune has defining properties, which I think you’ll agree that it does, then it necessarily has a form. I’ve quoted Aquinas as saying that X has defining properties iff X has a form. I would further argue that X has a form iff X has an essence.


    Existence is prior to essence and form, so, if existence has an essence or form, then it follows that existence is prior to itself. This is a contradiction. It follows, then, that existence has no form, just as prime matter has no form.

    To say that something has a form is to say that it has an intelligible character; it is a "this-such", in Oderberg's words. But basic existence is not a this-such, and neither is prime matter. They are factors within a this-such. Therefore, if prime matter is contradictory, then esse commune is contradictory. That's a pretty bold (and ridiculous) claim to make.

    If X and Y are really distinct, but X and Y can never be ontologically separate, then what is the difference between real distinction and virtual distinction?

    I honestly don't know. But that doesn't mean Aquinas didn't address it--it just means that I have more to learn.

    It is only identical in the sense of there being the exact same form in the knower and the known. They are not identical in the sense that the knower actually becomes the known. The identity is between the form in intellect and the form in known entity. Read the quotes that I’ve supplied above. They make clear that the knower becomes the known only in the sense that the knower possesses the form of the known within itself. That’s it.

    They don't clarify that at all. In fact, if they did, then it would follow that the intellect contains unembodied forms, which do not exist. To contemplate a form is for that form to be embodied within the intellect. Here's Wippel:

    "In its first operation, the intellect, in grasping the quiddity of a thing, has present to itself nothing but a likeness of an extramental thing, just as an external sense power does when it receives the species of a sensible object. (In other contexts Thomas refers to this as receiving the form of an extramental thing, but in an immaterial way. And he explains that in the process of being cognized the form of the object takes on a new mode of existing, intentional esse, in addition to the physical or extramental esse it continues to enjoy in the object itself.)"

    In other words, the form really is embodied within the intellect, but by a different mode than in a material being. It has "esse intentionale" rather than "esse naturale", despite being the same form--"humanity", say--in each case. Peter Geach:

    "What makes a sensation or thought of an X to be of an X is that it is an individual occurrence of that very form or nature which occurs in X -- it is thus that our mind 'reaches right up to the reality'; what makes it to be a sensation or thought of an X rather than an actual X or an actual X-ness is that X-ness here occurs in the special way called esse intentionale and not in the 'ordinary' way called esse naturale."

    So, while I might have gone a little overboard by saying that a dog appears in the intellect, it remains true that the intellect takes the form of a dog via esse intentionale. Hence, to know something is for that thing to be in some way embodied in the intellect. So it is with God.

    More later.

    ReplyDelete
  185. Therefore, when it has the form of the dog, it makes no sense to say that it “becomes a dog”. A dog is a material particular entity, and there is no way an immaterial entity can become a material particular entity.

    That's close to being true. But, again, unless the essence of the dog had esse intentionale in the intellect, then either it wouldn't be there at all or it would have esse naturale (impossible). And to have esse intentionale just is to be embodied in the intellect in a certain way. So, you're right that it isn't exactly a "dog" in there, but that isn't the whole story.

    I suppose God is also a dog, because he contains the form of a dog?

    This would not follow in any case, because God contains all forms virtually.

    But that contradicts your earlier position. I wrote that you have two choices:

    (1) We increasingly become like God, which also implies that we never actually become God
    (2) We actually become God

    You said that “(1) is definitely the position of the Church Fathers and of Aquinas, and I don't believe that it contains any contradictions.” Now you are saying that we do not “become like God”, but rather “literally become God”, which was (2) above, a position that you said “is not something endorsed by any traditional Christian denomination, as far as I know”. So, does that mean that you now endorse a position rejected by all Christian denominations?


    Not at all. As I said, to have God in the intellect is to become increasingly like God, which is to say that you literally take on God. Again, God appears in the intellect both essence-wise and esse-wise, and so, far more so than the contemplation of a tree or dog, the intellect becomes God. But God is present as esse intentionale, rather than as esse naturale, and so Geach's "reaches right up to the reality" equation remains true. The intellect is not destroyed. However, the reaching does not end, because God is infinitely knowable. To be infinitely knowable, particularly in this case, is to be infinitely become-able.

    But it does destroy the identity of the intellect containing God. After all, to become God would be to become simple, perfect and infinite subsistent being. One could not be simple, perfect and infinite and simultaneously be compound, imperfect and finite. That would result in a gross contradiction.

    The distinction between esse naturale and esse intentionale takes care of this paradox. The knower "reaches" for the known, in a way becoming it but not being consumed by it. In the case of God, he also takes on God's infinite esse and is deified.

    I wish I'd known about the naturale-intentionale distinction before now. It would have made things a lot easier.

    ReplyDelete
  186. Whether the intellect is like all of God, some of God, or none of God, you have impossibilities.

    The intellect has all of God, but it understands him by a finite mode--esse intentionale.

    In other words, the intellects of the blessed will increase in knowledge until the day of judgment, and then they cannot increase any longer, which completely contradicts your account.

    I'm not sure what Aquinas is saying, there. Is it that those with the Beatific Vision will have total knowledge after the general resurrection? I have no idea--and that doesn't seem to make any sense. In any case, if Aquinas is saying that there is a limit to what we can know of God, then he is at variance with more-or-less the entirety of Christian tradition. Further, it seems to contradict the rest of his system. To stop having more knowledge of God would mean either that we had all knowledge of God (impossible) or that we had no knowledge of God (hell), neither of which seems particularly promising.

    My guess is either that this is an interpretation problem or a specifically Catholic doctrine. In either case, I reject it, along with Aquinas's talk of predestination, the venial-mortal distinction and the immaculate conception. These are all matters of doctrine and exegesis, rather than of natural theology.

    The issue is not whether the car is driving or not. Of course, it is driving. The issue is whether you can coherently say that the car is getting closer to its destination in such a scenario. My contention is that you cannot, because “getting closer” means “less distance between yourself and the destination”, and this is impossible if the destination is infinitely far away.

    The issue is whether or not "getting closer" is an adequate description of the event. Again, as Hart says, "one is always at the beginning of one's pilgrimage toward him, always discovering and entering into greater dimensions of his beauty." This is not a matter of getting closer, but of mere traveling. And it is clear that the car is traveling, just as it is clear that it can see various things by the roadside. Whether or not it is "getting closer" is irrelevant--it's a matter of always being at the beginning, while simultaneously seeing more and more. And that is what "Hilbert's Highway" illustrates.

    However, I think that this lacunae in your account severely compromises it, because your entire account of virtuality presupposes holistic unities, and if you have no good account of holistic unities, then you cannot have a good account of virtuality, either.

    Oderberg discusses the differences between substances and accidental unities in Real Essentialism. The problem I'm having is determining whether a planet is a substance or an accidental unity, since Oderberg does not address this particular question. Hence, I have to leave it to others.

    ReplyDelete
  187. Rank:

    Existence is prior to essence and form, so, if existence has an essence or form, then it follows that existence is prior to itself. This is a contradiction. It follows, then, that existence has no form, just as prime matter has no form.

    I disagree. For God, essence = existence, and thus to say that existence is prior to essence would mean that God is prior to himself, which is a contradiction. And that means that existence necessarily has an essence, at least with regards to God. Furthermore, all the essences of created and uncreated beings are necessarily present within God’s intellect, which means that existence cannot be prior to essence, but rather they occur simultaneously. In other words, for as long as God has existed, the essences of created and uncreated beings have also existed, because it is necessarily the case that God contains all essences in a virtual fashion within his intellect. So, this whole idea of existence preceding essence just does not make any sense. There is no existence without essence, and there is no essence without existence. They go hand in hand, and cannot exist without the other, which is another reason why I completely disagree with the idea of a real distinction between essence and existence.

    To say that something has a form is to say that it has an intelligible character; it is a "this-such", in Oderberg's words. But basic existence is not a this-such, and neither is prime matter. They are factors within a this-such. Therefore, if prime matter is contradictory, then esse commune is contradictory. That's a pretty bold (and ridiculous) claim to make.

    Basic existence must have an intelligible character, if it is either esse subsistens (because essence = existence, and anything with an essence has an intelligible character) or esse commune (because we can abstract esse commune from the totality of ens, and we can only abstract that which has an intelligible character). So, unless there is another kind of esse out there, anything with esse must have an intelligible character, and thus have a form.

    I honestly don't know. But that doesn't mean Aquinas didn't address it--it just means that I have more to learn.

    That’s fine. I’m an amateur here, too. But its concerning to me that your entire justification of virtual properties hinges upon there being a coherent account of real distinction and holistic unities. First, there must be a coherent account of real distinction, because virtual distinction is supposed to be neither real distinction nor logical distinction. To say that X is neither Y nor Z presupposes that Y has coherent content. If Y lacks coherent content, then you do not have a good understanding of X either, because X presupposes Y. Second, there must be a coherent account of holistic unities, because virtual properties are supposed to be contained within holistic unities, and without holistic unities, then there cannot be virtual properties.

    They don't clarify that at all.

    They do clarify things. You just don’t want to see it.

    In fact, if they did, then it would follow that the intellect contains unembodied forms, which do not exist.

    No. It would only follow that in an immaterial intellect, the form exists in an immaterial fashion within the intellect, and in a material being, the form exists in a material fashion within a material being. So, you have form-in-intellect and form-in-matter. Plato thought you could have the form itself exist independent of intellect and matter, which is impossible. Aristotle’s and Aquinas’ accounts say that the same form exists within an intellect and a material being, but in a different mode of being. The whole account presupposes that forms can be contained within and possessed by intellects.

    ReplyDelete
  188. "In its first operation, the intellect, in grasping the quiddity of a thing, has present to itself nothing but a likeness of an extramental thing, just as an external sense power does when it receives the species of a sensible object. (In other contexts Thomas refers to this as receiving the form of an extramental thing, but in an immaterial way. And he explains that in the process of being cognized the form of the object takes on a new mode of existing, intentional esse, in addition to the physical or extramental esse it continues to enjoy in the object itself.)"

    Nothing here contradicts my account. The “likeness of an extramental thing” is the form. Wippel even says that this is “receiving the form of an extramental thing”. That is entirely consistent with what I have been saying all along.

    In other words, the form really is embodied within the intellect, but by a different mode than in a material being. It has "esse intentionale" rather than "esse naturale", despite being the same form--"humanity", say--in each case.

    Again, completely consistent with my account. The form F can exist either as F-in-intellect, or esse intentionale, or as F-in-particular being, or esse naturale. But it is the same F in both cases, as you say: “despite being the same form”. So, the bottom line is that in Aquinas’ account of knowledge, to know P is to possess and contain the form of P within one’s intellect. Nothing that you have written contradicts that account. I mean, even you yourself are now agreeing that the intellect must possess a form as esse intentionale. So, what’s the problem?

    So, while I might have gone a little overboard by saying that a dog appears in the intellect, it remains true that the intellect takes the form of a dog via esse intentionale. Hence, to know something is for that thing to be in some way embodied in the intellect. So it is with God.

    “For that thing to be in some way embodied in the intellect”? Really? “In some way”? The way is that the thing is embodied in the intellect by having its form be contained and possessed by the intellect in question. I mean, what is the difference between “the intellect takes the form of X” and “the intellect possesses the form of X”? Is there a difference?

    Not at all. As I said, to have God in the intellect is to become increasingly like God, which is to say that you literally take on God. Again, God appears in the intellect both essence-wise and esse-wise, and so, far more so than the contemplation of a tree or dog, the intellect becomes God.

    Tell me how the following propositions are not contradictory:

    (1) X becomes increasingly like Y
    (2) X becomes Y

    To me, (1) and (2) cannot possibly both be true at the same time. Once X becomes Y, it is no longer increasingly like Y. It is Y. It makes absolutely no sense to say that X is identical to Y and X is like Y, because to say that X is like Y implies that X is partly different from Y, and thus X cannot possibly be identical to Y.

    ReplyDelete
  189. But God is present as esse intentionale, rather than as esse naturale, and so Geach's "reaches right up to the reality" equation remains true. The intellect is not destroyed. However, the reaching does not end, because God is infinitely knowable. To be infinitely knowable, particularly in this case, is to be infinitely become-able.

    If God is present as a form in the intellect, which is what “esse intentionale” means, then God himself is actually present within the intellect, which means that the infinite, all-powerful and perfect creator of all existence is contained and possessed by our finite and imperfect intellects, which would mean that God can be limited after all, and thus is not infinite at all. After all, to be contained within our intellect is a form of boundary and delimitation, which is supposed to be impossible for God. Furthermore, it would mean that we would literally become God himself, because we cannot both be finite and imperfect beings, as well as infinite and perfect beings, which means that we will have utterly disappeared into nothingness once God’s infinitude has exploded our intellect from within.

    The distinction between esse naturale and esse intentionale takes care of this paradox. The knower "reaches" for the known, in a way becoming it but not being consumed by it. In the case of God, he also takes on God's infinite esse and is deified.

    It doesn’t help at all. The knower “reaches” for the known by virtue of possessing the form of the known within his intellect. That is how the connection between knower and known is possible. Without it, there is no connection, and thus no correspondence, and thus no knowledge. And this entire account is possible, because the known continues to exist despite being known by the knower. And this whole account is only possible when the known is a compound entity, because its existence can be separated from its essence, which is why it can continue to exist outside the knower even after it is known, i.e. the essence is present within the intellect, even though the actual known entity is not. This is impossible for a simple being whose essence = existence, because God would literally be contained within the intellect, which is impossible, because containment would be a limitation, which is impossible for God, being unlimited and infinite.

    The intellect has all of God, but it understands him by a finite mode--esse intentionale.

    If the intellect has all of God, then the intellect both possesses and contains God himself, which is impossible, given that God cannot have limits, and being contained and possessed necessarily implies being constrained by limits. Furthermore, if God is fully present within the intellect of X and the intellect of Y, then there are now two Gods, one in X and one in Y, which is absurd. And if God is in X and not in Y, then X has “all of God”, but Y does not, and thus they cannot both be said to know God at all. X does, but Y doesn’t.

    I mean, that is why you have been so strongly contesting this model of knowledge, because you rightly understand that if Aquinas’ theory of epistemology truly requires the possession of the form of the known within the intellect, then that necessarily implies that the form is contained and bound within the intellect, which would be impossible for God. However, the best that you have done is provide some quotes by Aquinas and Thomist scholars that are best interpreted in light of other Aquinas and Thomist quotes as supporting my view, and not yours. There is no way to reconcile your view with my quotes, but my view can be reconciled with your quotes. So, I think mine are more plausible as accounting for more quotes than yours.

    ReplyDelete
  190. I'm not sure what Aquinas is saying, there. Is it that those with the Beatific Vision will have total knowledge after the general resurrection? I have no idea--and that doesn't seem to make any sense. In any case, if Aquinas is saying that there is a limit to what we can know of God, then he is at variance with more-or-less the entirety of Christian tradition. Further, it seems to contradict the rest of his system. To stop having more knowledge of God would mean either that we had all knowledge of God (impossible) or that we had no knowledge of God (hell), neither of which seems particularly promising.

    What can I say? The quote directly and clearly says that knowledge increases in the blessed only until the day of judgement, and then there is no more increase in knowledge. If someone can explain that one away, then I’d love to hear it. Furthermore, if Aquinas’ account rejects your idea that knowledge of God during the beautific vision necessarily implies an ever-increasing and neverending expansion of our knowledge of God, then how does that square with your earlier statement that “Aquinas's rendering of deification the best and most complete I've seen from the Western church. I just wish it was emphasized more often in the Catholic church's current theology and religious practice.” Maybe you want to take those words back now, given that Aquinas’ account suddenly seems to be quite heretical?

    The issue is whether or not "getting closer" is an adequate description of the event. Again, as Hart says, "one is always at the beginning of one's pilgrimage toward him, always discovering and entering into greater dimensions of his beauty." This is not a matter of getting closer, but of mere traveling. And it is clear that the car is traveling, just as it is clear that it can see various things by the roadside. Whether or not it is "getting closer" is irrelevant--it's a matter of always being at the beginning, while simultaneously seeing more and more. And that is what "Hilbert's Highway" illustrates.

    You wrote that “we become increasingly like God forever, while remaining at an infinite distance from him”. That struck me as completely contradictory. To say that X becomes increasing like Y means that X is getting closer to becoming Y, and once X becomes Y, then X will have arrived at its destination and goal. What do you understand when someone says that X is becoming increasingly like Y? Do you really not think that X and Y are getting closer to becoming identical? What else does it mean? And if it cannot mean anything other than what I have said, then I hope that you will agree that it is incoherent to say (1) that X is getting closer to Y, and (2) that Y is infinitely far from X. One cannot get increasingly close to what is infinitely far, by definition.

    Oderberg discusses the differences between substances and accidental unities in Real Essentialism. The problem I'm having is determining whether a planet is a substance or an accidental unity, since Oderberg does not address this particular question. Hence, I have to leave it to others.

    That’s fine. I’d love to hear the answer to this, too. And if there is no answer, then why isn’t there an answer? That just seems odd.

    ReplyDelete
  191. I disagree. For God, essence = existence, and thus to say that existence is prior to essence would mean that God is prior to himself, which is a contradiction.

    The entire purpose of the theory is that existence is prior to essence in everything but God. I know that you disagree with the real distinction, but that is neither here nor there, because it is not what Aquinas nor any of the greatest Thomists have believed. Oderberg goes into great detail to explain why the real distinction is necessary, and I, once again, recommend that book to you. In any case, I'm done arguing about this subject until you've done so.

    The point is this: for Aquinas, existence is prior to essence in everything but God. Each individual actus essendi of creation is prior to its form; therefore, these cannot themselves have forms, or they would be prior to themselves. Either that, or essence and existence would be identical, which means that everything would be God. I don't care about your arguments against the real distinction--within the framework of Aquinas, your account is contradictory, and thus must be false.

    So, unless there is another kind of esse out there, anything with esse must have an intelligible character, and thus have a form.

    Which is a contradiction. Your argument does not work.

    The whole account presupposes that forms can be contained within and possessed by intellects.

    To say that a form exists intentionally within an intellect is to say that the intellect takes the form of that form. The intellect "reaches out", taking the shape of the form intentionally. This is not containment but "becoming". I found this on Google Books:

    "But far from merely designating some degenerate form of being, in Aquinas 'intentional being' often designates the richest, primary mode of being for creatures. This notion is also present in Bonaventure and Augustine. It is a being which gets its full meaning by pointing to another (recall that 'in-tendo' means stretching out to something); it is added to our physical being, so to speak, and is distinctively human. Through knowledge, e.g., one can expand one's being by 'becoming' everything one knows."

    Geach confirms this account in the quote from before, as does Wippel.

    So, the bottom line is that in Aquinas’ account of knowledge, to know P is to possess and contain the form of P within one’s intellect. Nothing that you have written contradicts that account. I mean, even you yourself are now agreeing that the intellect must possess a form as esse intentionale. So, what’s the problem?

    To "possess a form as esse intentionale" is to take the form of that form, but in an intentional rather than natural way. That's how it works. The intellect does not contain but literally becomes what it is contemplating, reaching out to other types of being, without being destroyed or compromised.

    The way is that the thing is embodied in the intellect by having its form be contained and possessed by the intellect in question. I mean, what is the difference between “the intellect takes the form of X” and “the intellect possesses the form of X”? Is there a difference?

    Containment means placing X in closure Y. But intentional esse means that Y stretches out to X and in fact becomes X, rather than merely containing X. This is completely different than the containment theory you're espousing.

    ReplyDelete
  192. Tell me how the following propositions are not contradictory:

    (1) X becomes increasingly like Y
    (2) X becomes Y

    To me, (1) and (2) cannot possibly both be true at the same time. Once X becomes Y, it is no longer increasingly like Y. It is Y. It makes absolutely no sense to say that X is identical to Y and X is like Y, because to say that X is like Y implies that X is partly different from Y, and thus X cannot possibly be identical to Y.


    I don't mean "becomes God" as a statement of finality. I'm merely talking about a process of infinite becoming. You've gotten caught up in definitions--everything I've said is the same idea. For an entity X to experience the Beatific Vision is for X to stretch toward God; it is not a mere containment of God in X, which contradicts all of Aquinas's theories of knowledge in the first place.

    If God is present as a form in the intellect, which is what “esse intentionale” means, then God himself is actually present within the intellect, which means that the infinite, all-powerful and perfect creator of all existence is contained and possessed by our finite and imperfect intellects, which would mean that God can be limited after all, and thus is not infinite at all.

    You're going to have to admit that you've completely misunderstood Aquinas's theory of knowledge. Esse intentionale is a stretching and becoming--not a containment.

    The knower “reaches” for the known by virtue of possessing the form of the known within his intellect.

    For a form to be in the intellect is for that form to have intentional existence in the intellect, which means that the intellect is stretching and becoming. Again, Wippel says that "in the process of being cognized the form of the object takes on a new mode of existing, intentional esse, in addition to the physical or extramental esse it continues to enjoy in the object itself." To know at all is to know intentionally, which is to become.

    This is impossible for a simple being whose essence = existence, because God would literally be contained within the intellect, which is impossible, because containment would be a limitation, which is impossible for God, being unlimited and infinite.

    It's a good thing Aquinas didn't believe in a containment theory of knowledge, then.

    There is no way to reconcile your view with my quotes, but my view can be reconciled with your quotes.

    Every single quote you provided is just shorthand for what I'm discussing in detail here, basically.

    ReplyDelete
  193. Furthermore, if Aquinas’ account rejects your idea that knowledge of God during the beautific vision necessarily implies an ever-increasing and neverending expansion of our knowledge of God, then how does that square with your earlier statement that “Aquinas's rendering of deification the best and most complete I've seen from the Western church. I just wish it was emphasized more often in the Catholic church's current theology and religious practice.” Maybe you want to take those words back now, given that Aquinas’ account suddenly seems to be quite heretical?

    Actually, believe it or not, I'd already read that quote from Aquinas during my own research into his ideas on deification and so forth. It weirded me out then, and it continues to do so. I still stand by my statement that his is the most complete breakdown of deification of the Western church--none of the others, to my knowledge, even come close. I've been working on the book The Ground of Union: Deification in Aquinas and Palamas recently, which, with any luck, will solve the problem Aquinas presents here. In any case, I think that Aquinas's belief that deification can stop would be considered heterodox in the Orthodox church, with whom my sympathies lie. Rejecting his ideas here has no effect on the rest of the system.

    One cannot get increasingly close to what is infinitely far, by definition.

    I admit that my wording is vague, but my point remains. A car can travel an infinite distance and still be said to have traveled, and to continue traveling. Likewise, a soul can expand an infinite amount and still be said to have expanded, and to continue expanding.

    ReplyDelete
  194. Rank:

    The entire purpose of the theory is that existence is prior to essence in everything but God.

    Then we agree that it is not true that existence precedes essence in all cases. At least, it is untrue with respect to God. With regards to everything else, I would also argue that it is untrue that existence precedes essences, because if God’s existence is identical to his essence, then his existence is also identical to his intellect, and his intellect contains all essences in a virtual fashion. Therefore, all essences have a form of virtual existence within God’s intellect for as long as God has existed, and thus existence is not prior to essence with regards to non-divine essences.

    I know that you disagree with the real distinction, but that is neither here nor there, because it is not what Aquinas nor any of the greatest Thomists have believed.

    It’s not that I disagree with it. I just don’t understand it.

    Oderberg goes into great detail to explain why the real distinction is necessary, and I, once again, recommend that book to you. In any case, I'm done arguing about this subject until you've done so.

    He writes that the real distinction between essence and existence is between physical essence and existence. In other words, it is the thesis that the essence of physical entities is really distinct from the existence of physical entities. And that depends upon what is meant by “existence”. If he means that they do not have any kind of existence, then he is wrong, because all essences exist in an eternal and virtual fashion within God’s intellect. If he means that they do not have actual existence in the sense of being in actual physical compound entities, then he is correct, because the essences of physical entities exist within the divine intellect before they are actualized into actual physical entities in the material world.

    But then there is an ontological separation involved, because the essence of a physical entity can exist in the divine intellect and not in a particular material entity. In other words, the essence can be a part of esse subsistens and not a part of esse commune, which is a kind of ontological separability.

    The point is this: for Aquinas, existence is prior to essence in everything but God. Each individual actus essendi of creation is prior to its form; therefore, these cannot themselves have forms, or they would be prior to themselves. Either that, or essence and existence would be identical, which means that everything would be God. I don't care about your arguments against the real distinction--within the framework of Aquinas, your account is contradictory, and thus must be false.

    It is Aquinas’ framework that contains the contradiction. Aquinas clearly states that if X has defining properties, then X must have a form: “because all knowledge and every definition comes by way of the form, prime matter cannot be defined or known in itself but only through the composite” (http://dhspriory.org/thomas/DePrincNaturae.htm). However, prime matter does have distinguishing properties, i.e. its status as the kind of being that is pure potentiality. And thus, there is a contradiction: prime matter necessarily must have definitive properties (to distinguish it from other divine ideas) and cannot possibly have definitive properties (because all definitive properties are derived from forms and essences, and prime matter cannot have a form or essence).

    ReplyDelete
  195. Furthermore, if esse commune has defining properties, then it must also have a form, because “all knowledge and every definition comes by way of the form”. If it does not have a form then it does not have defining properties. Esse commune does have defining properties, because it is abstracted from ens by the intellect, and thus must have a form, because the intellect abstracts forms from entities. However, you have stated that esse commune has no form, and if you are correct, then esse commune both must have a form and cannot have a form, which is a contradiction.

    Which is a contradiction. Your argument does not work.

    What are you talking about? My argument does not work only if you already presuppose the truth of Thomism, but that would be begging the question, because that is precisely what we are discussing. The fact that Thomist principles result in contradictions in the form of necessary impossibilities should lead to the rejection of at least some Thomist principles. If it turns out that Thomist principles only work as a totality, then the totality of Thomist principles must be false, because they lead to a contradiction. You are perfectly welcome to find the flaws in my arguments, but it is not a valid move to just assume that they must be incorrect, because otherwise Thomism would be false. I mean, that’s kind of the whole point of them, no?

    To say that a form exists intentionally within an intellect is to say that the intellect takes the form of that form. The intellect "reaches out", taking the shape of the form intentionally. This is not containment but "becoming".

    That’s right. The intellect takes the form by abstracting it from a particular entity via the intelligible species. And even your entire idea of becoming presupposes the containment and possession of a form. A material entity becomes a dog only if that particular chunk of matter contains and possesses the form of dogness. An intellect becomes a dog – whatever that means – only if that intellect contains and possesses the form of dogness. That is why Aquinas and Thomists always talks about an immaterial intellect “possessing” a form, “receiving” a form, and that a form is “in” the intellect. It seems pretty clear that once an immaterial intellect receives a form, that form is inside the intellect and is possessed by the intellect.

    "But far from merely designating some degenerate form of being, in Aquinas 'intentional being' often designates the richest, primary mode of being for creatures. This notion is also present in Bonaventure and Augustine. It is a being which gets its full meaning by pointing to another (recall that 'in-tendo' means stretching out to something); it is added to our physical being, so to speak, and is distinctively human. Through knowledge, e.g., one can expand one's being by 'becoming' everything one knows."

    And how does one become everything one knows? By virtue of containment and possession of a form! Honestly, every quote that you have supplied is consistent with my interpretation. How does your interpretation square with Aquinas and Thomists saying that the intellect possesses the form, and that the form is in the intellect? It doesn’t, and your interpretation actually presupposes possession and containment to make sense at all. I mean, otherwise, how does an intellect become what it knows? And note that the above quote puts “becoming” in scare quotes, implying that it is not a real becoming, but only a kind of becoming, probably in the sense of the acquisition and possession of a form.

    ReplyDelete
  196. To "possess a form as esse intentionale" is to take the form of that form, but in an intentional rather than natural way. That's how it works. The intellect does not contain but literally becomes what it is contemplating, reaching out to other types of being, without being destroyed or compromised.

    All you have to support your position is a footnote on a work that is not even directly about Aquinas at all. And even that brief footnote does not fully explicate what is meant by “becoming everything one knows” in any kind of detail. Honestly, you are just making this up out of whole cloth, and trying to find quotes to support you in the most distant of places. I’ve cited Aquinas, Feser, Stump and Davies. I could probably search my other other Thomist books for other such confirmation. You have cited Wippel and Geach, both quotes which could be interpreted in keeping with all my citations, and one footnote in a work about Meinong’s theory of non-existent objects, which does not explain “becoming” in any kind of detail.

    Containment means placing X in closure Y. But intentional esse means that Y stretches out to X and in fact becomes X, rather than merely containing X. This is completely different than the containment theory you're espousing.

    Y stretches out to X only if Y possesses and contains the form of X within its intellect. Without such containment, there can be no knowledge. I’m sorry, but that’s just how it goes. A footnote in a book about Meinong cannot change that.

    I don't mean "becomes God" as a statement of finality. I'm merely talking about a process of infinite becoming.

    That’s good, because that would be completely contradictory. When you say that X becomes Y, that is a statement of finality. When an acorn becomes an oak, it is not still an acorn, but rather is an oak as the final end is actualized. If you are now disowning your claim that a human becomes God in order to make your theory of infinite becoming even remotely plausible, then that is fine, but just be clear about it. After all, you did write that “an intellect contemplating God (essence + existence) would quite literally become God.” It seems that an intellect never becomes God at all.

    For an entity X to experience the Beatific Vision is for X to stretch toward God; it is not a mere containment of God in X, which contradicts all of Aquinas's theories of knowledge in the first place.

    Aquinas’ theory of beautific vision contradicts Aquinas’ theory of knowledge, your revisions and evasions notwithstanding. For X to stretch towards God in a way of knowledge, the essence of God must be possessed within X’s intellect. That is his theory of knowledge. That would mean that God himself is present within X’s intellect, which means that God must be limited in some way, and that would conflict with his infinity. Furthermore, Aquinas writes that “the being of God is self-subsisting, not received in any other, and is thus called infinite” (ST 1a.7.1). This means that God himself cannot be received by an intellect at all, because he is “not received in any other”, and to be known is to be received by an intellect. Again, on Aquinas’ own account, knowledge of God is impossible, in this life, as well as in the next.

    For a form to be in the intellect is for that form to have intentional existence in the intellect, which means that the intellect is stretching and becoming.

    It is stretching and becoming only by virtue of the presence of the form within the intellect. If the form were not in the intellect, then there would be no stretching and becoming at all.

    ReplyDelete
  197. Again, Wippel says that "in the process of being cognized the form of the object takes on a new mode of existing, intentional esse, in addition to the physical or extramental esse it continues to enjoy in the object itself." To know at all is to know intentionally, which is to become.

    But he also says that this is only possible if “the receiving the form of an extramental thing, but in an immaterial way” (Metaphysical Themes, II, p. 104). He also writes that “the intellect receives the form of a sensible object according to the intellect’s own mode of existing … It is for this reason, therefore, that through its intellect the soul knows bodies by a knowledge that is immaterial, universal, and necessary” and “a nonknower can possess only its own form, whereas a knower can also possess the forms of other things” and “Thomas has always maintained, knowledge involves possessing the form of a thing without its matter or in immaterial fashion, the more immaterial a knower, the more perfect its ability to know” (Ibid., p. 118). He also writes that “a knower must receive the form of the object it knows” (Ibid., p. 119). To know is to have and possess the form of what is known within one’s intellect.

    It's a good thing Aquinas didn't believe in a containment theory of knowledge, then.

    Except that he did.

    Every single quote you provided is just shorthand for what I'm discussing in detail here, basically.

    Sure. The majority of texts support my interpretation in a clear sense, and your convoluted interpretation must be the preferred one because of a footnote in a book about Meinong. Right.

    Actually, believe it or not, I'd already read that quote from Aquinas during my own research into his ideas on deification and so forth. It weirded me out then, and it continues to do so.

    It should do more than weird you out. It should make you question your entire account if you prefer Aquinas’, or you must reject his account altogether for Hart’s account, but then you cannot act like you are defending Thomism here.

    In any case, I think that Aquinas's belief that deification can stop would be considered heterodox in the Orthodox church, with whom my sympathies lie. Rejecting his ideas here has no effect on the rest of the system.

    Cool. Except that his entire system is geared up towards the beatific vision as the final end of mankind, and thus if he has no account of the final end of mankind, then his entire system is compromised.

    I admit that my wording is vague, but my point remains. A car can travel an infinite distance and still be said to have traveled, and to continue traveling. Likewise, a soul can expand an infinite amount and still be said to have expanded, and to continue expanding.

    I agree with that. But do you agree that the whole idea of an infinite drawing closer to God is an incoherent idea? I mean, you are on a road that never gets you closer to your destination, and thus you can never say that you have progressed at all.

    ReplyDelete
  198. Oh, and here’s Feser:

    “Recall that in the Aristotelian conception of the soul, when the intellect knows something outside it, one and the same form exists both in the intellect and the thing known … A kind of union between the mind and its object occurs by virtue of their sharing a form, nature, or essence that is irreducible to either of them. This is what makes knowledge possible: there is no gap between the form as it exists in the mind and as it exists in the object, because these are the same form” (TLS, pp. 199-200).

    Again, the core idea is that the form must be possessed within the intellect in order for knowledge to be possible. Any idea about the intellect becoming a known object only makes sense within the context of a shared and identical form within the knower's intellect and the known object.

    It's really not that complicated.

    ReplyDelete
  199. You are perfectly welcome to find the flaws in my arguments, but it is not a valid move to just assume that they must be incorrect, because otherwise Thomism would be false. I mean, that’s kind of the whole point of them, no?

    The idea that you would find a contradiction in essence and existence that eight hundred years of philosophers failed to locate strikes me as such a remote possibility that it is not even worth debating. And, if prime matter and existence are in the same boat on this point--which they are--, then I find it even less plausible that you've found a contradiction.

    Both of us have made our fair share of mistakes during these long debates, but Aquinas always turns out to have solved any problem that is presented. I've only been a Thomist for about a year, so I still have a lot to learn. I'm not quite squared on prime matter yet, among other things. But I'm kind of tired of arguing about it, particularly when it seems so unbelievably unlikely that you are correct--given that your account implicates esse as well. If Prof. Feser wants to set us straight, I'm all ears; otherwise, I'd prefer to focus my energy on the Beatific Vision argument, if you don't mind.

    That’s right. The intellect takes the form by abstracting it from a particular entity via the intelligible species

    "Takes" means "assumes".

    A material entity becomes a dog only if that particular chunk of matter contains and possesses the form of dogness.

    Form contains and possesses matter--not the other way around.

    An intellect becomes a dog – whatever that means – only if that intellect contains and possesses the form of dogness.

    What's confusing us, I think, is the medium by which the intellect assumes the form. It seems--I might be wrong--that Aquinas believed that every act of knowing includes A) a knower, B) a medium and C) a thing known. My source: http://tinyurl.com/8pddnfk. Aquinas himself:

    "It is impossible for any created intellect to see the essence of God by its own natural power. For knowledge is regulated according as the thing known is in the knower. But the thing known is in the knower according to the mode of the knower. Hence the knowledge of every knower is ruled according to its own nature. If therefore the mode of anything's being exceeds the mode of the knower, it must result that the knowledge of the object is above the nature of the knower."

    I think that we may, in a sense, both be correct about how Aquinas's knowledge theory works. The problem is that I've been focusing on the obtainment of the object (the known), while you've been focusing on the medium. Wippel again:

    "In its first operation, the intellect, in grasping the quiddity of a thing, has present to itself nothing but a likeness of an extramental thing, just as an external sense power does when it receives the species of a sensible object. (In other contexts Thomas refers to this as receiving the form of an extramental thing, but in an immaterial way. And he explains that in the process of being cognized the form of the object takes on a new mode of existing, intentional esse, in addition to the physical or extramental esse it continues to enjoy in the object itself.)"

    ReplyDelete