From: open1-AT-execpc.com
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 22:34:58 -0700
Subject: Re: PLC: After this, only 80 Proof


Reg Lilly wrote:
> 
> open1-AT-execpc.com wrote:
> 
> > The intent of Premise 1 is not that an object named "something" exists,
> > but that at least one entity exists.
> 
> "One entity" I see as no different than "something", both are formalizations of
> something not formal, ex. Dennis Polis is not a formal entity but -- Dennis
> Polis!  The act of formalization is no innocent act.  My point is that your real
> beginning point (and I think you would agree with this) is some real object,
> that is, with an object that is, in the first instance, not an instanciation of
> a universal, but a 'spatio-temporally- unique-and-irrepalceable-thing', viz.,
> Dennis Polis!

Well, I agree that my datum is a real individual.  But, a real individual is also an 
instance of any number of universals.  Why?  Because what makes a universal 
*applicable* is the fact that real individuals can evoke it.  I can evoke the 
universals white (caucasian), male, human, Catholic, animal, pain in the derrier, 
etc. The others are in these same universal categories for precisely ther reason 
that they too, in being known are able to evoke these same ideas.

But, I agree that it is somewehat misleading to think of individuals as instantiaed 
universals.  Why?  Because that seemly innocuous transformation puts the cart before 
the horse -- changing universals from something evoked in the mind into exemplar 
causes that we more or less perfectly instantiate.  Universals are logically and 
ontologically posterior to the beings that evoke them - and both for the same reason 
because they derive their being (which is their information content) from the 
individual realites that evoke them.  On the other hand, the individuals derive 
neither their being, nor their information content from universals.

Having said all of this, I do not see how this in any way diminishes the truth or 
validity of my proof.  On the contrary, it reveals our knowledge as dynamically 
dependent on the substantial individuals the it intends -- a shared dynamics that 
bridges the gulf between subject and object, giving a deeper meaning to veridical.

>    Your appeal to potentiality-actuality is a metaphysical contruction (originated
> by Aristotle) that cannot be simply invoke.  Its validity must be demonstrated.

I am not sureof the context of this remark.  If it is my interpretation of 
Aristotle's position, then I need not demonstrate that itis valid, but only that it 
is Aristotle's - which those familiar with the corpus would surely acknowledge.  If 
it is my use of the distinction to prove some point, it would help to know what the 
point is.  In the mean time I can refer Reg to _Physics_ I, which does a good job of 
showing the necessity of potential being to a coherrent theory of change.

> > >         PS.  Aristotle's unmoved mover had no potentiality (dunamis)
> > > whatsoever.
> >
> > No *unfulfilled potency.*  All act (energeia) is proportional to some
> > capacity to act. If x cannot act then it cannot be that x is acting.
> 
>    This is only true of natural beings which have material.  The unmoved mover is
> not a natural being, and it has no material cause.  

Hyle (Aristotle's material cause) is the sine qua non of motion.  But Aristotle make 
is quite clear that the unmoved mover is active without any motion.  Its 
characteristic activity is contemplation.  But to actually contemplate it must 
certainly have the capacity to contemplate - and that fully actualized.  There is 
the chance of some confusion here around the two senses in which capacity could be 
applied to God's nature: unactualized capacity - which God does not have and 
actualized capacity which God does have.

> For Aristotle, actuality is
> prior to potentiality, hence actuality cannot be subordinated to potentiality as
> you do here.

I am not subordinating unactualized potency to actuality, but merely pointing out 
that actualization is identically actualization of a (not necessarily prior) 
capacity.

>  Rather than quoting all the relevant passages of Book XII of the
> Metaphysics, here's McKeon's summary.  Without doubt, you are in error.
>     "6: Since movement must be eternal, thre must be an eternal mover, and one
> whose essence is actuality (actuality being prior to potency). 

I.e. unactualized potency.

> To account for the
> uniform change in the universe, there must be one principle which acts always
> alike [god], and one whose actions varies [nature].
>     "7. The eternal mover originates motion by being the primary object of desire
> (as it is of thought); being throughly actual, it cannot change or move; it is a
> living being, perfect, separate from sensible things, and without parts.
>     "9. The divine thought must be concerned with the most divine object, which
> itself. Thought and the object of thought are never different when the object is
> immaterial."
> 
>   I.e., god 1) is not everything,

Reg mistakes my postion entirely if he takes me for a pantheist!  How could I claim 
to be a finite being and at the same time infinite being?

> and 2) doesn't give a damn about us or anything but itself.

And that is why I said that reading De Koninick's paper was a necessity for a 
serious discussion of Aristotle's theology, because this is the very point he spends 
the better part of 100 pages refuting.

> > > Aristotle's god was finite, as are all things, but had the
> > > virtue of being pure energeia, pure actuality.
> >
> > Quite true.  Aristotle could not get beyond his solution of Zeno's
> > paradoxes with the insight that mathematical infinity is always
> > potential, never actual.  The only kind of infinity that entered his mind
> > was, then, intrinsically potential and not actual - and so unsuited to an
> > unmoved mover.
> >
> > But, that does not mean that my position contradicts Aristotle's -- only
> > that he did not consider the kind of infinity used in my proof.
> 
>         But he did, and rejected it as "not being real".

I might be wrong on this point, but I would like to see a citation.

> > Aristotle's unmoved mover is the source of all activity possible in the
> > cosmos.
> 
>      Completely wrong.  Natural beings by definition have within themselves their
> principle of motion and rest (Physics II, 1, 192b 8-15).

Yes.  God is not in the proximate causality business.  Natural beings have their 
own derivative and responsive actuality within themselves.

> The unmoved mover
> doesn't move anything anymore than a steak moves a hungry dog.

But a steak most certainly moves a hungry dog.  It is true that the motion is via 
intentionality rather that gears, strings and levers, but then God is rather more 
clever than Rube Goldberg.

> >  Thus, any activity that can be instantiated can be instantiated
> > by A's unmoved mover.  This is not necessarily the capacity to do all
> > logically possible things, but it is not clear that it is not that
> > capacity either.
> 
> Yes it is perfectly clear that absolute actuality and doing everything possible
> are contradictory for Aristotle.  Again, there is no dunamis, no potential in
> the unmoved mover: 1074a36 "But the primary essence has not matter;

[ouk echei hylen - "has no matter - not has no capacity or power" which would ne 
dynamis.]

> for it is
> complete reality. So the unmoveable mover is one both in definition and in
> number."

Certainly.

> Movements are change, and therefore require dunamis;

Now look at Delta, 12, 1019a15 "'Potency' [dynamis] means (1) a source of movement  
or change, which is in another thing than the thing moved [as is the case with 
motions caused by the unmoved mover] or in the same thing _qua_ other ..."

> hence like
> locomotion (i.e., you've got to have a body) is possible only for things which
> have a body [viz. meterial-dunamis].

Yes, change requires hyle as its hypokeimenon.  No, dynamis, is not hyle or matter. 
Hyle is an arche [source or principle] of dynamis, but is is not the only one.  See 
my "A New Reading of Aristotle's _Hyle_" in _The Modern Schoolman_, LXVIII (1991), 
3, 225-244 for more particulars.

> One of the basic distinctions between the
> unmoved mover and the planets is that the latter, though eternal and hence not
> involved in generation and decay, have bodies, and the way that they manifest
> their energeia/actuality is through eternal locomotion.  Are you suggesting that
> the unmoved mover has the potentiality for locomotion?

No.  Why should I?

> The unmoved mover is
> incapable of locomotion or of destroying the universe; indeed, its incapable of
> doing anything but thinking itself.

No.  Please read De K.
 
> > > Aristotle's god
> > > certainly was not capable of eating or even moving,
> > > which require body/matter (dunamis), nor was Aristotle a
> > > proto-Spinosist, who might claim god was the actuality in all actual
> > > things.  To see Aristotle's god a infinte, especially as having
> > > infinite capabillities to act, can only be done through a
> > > Christian optics.  Whatever you are, you are no Aristotelian!
> >
> > I did not say that my proof was Aristotle's, only that Aristotle's proof
> > was valid.  I did not attribute matter, eating, etc to the divine nature.
> > These are possible acts that can be instantiated by God via material
> > insturmentalities.
> 
>    Maybe a Christian god can 'instantiate,' but Aristotle's can't.

My assertion is that the God of my proof can.  My proof establishes more that 
Aristotle came to.

>  Nature is not one of the unmoved mover's 'instruments.'

As understood by Aristotle - agreed.  In actuality, I suppose it depends on how one 
conceives of the Divine use of insturmentalities.  If one conceives of such use as 
ab-use of their integrity, then agreed.  But, if one sees nature itself, in its 
integity, as a manifestation of Divine Intent - as the proof would lead one to see - 
then I disagree.

> Cheers!
> Reg
> rlilly-AT-scott.skidmore.edu


As a final note - It seems that Reg and I are not communicating on the 
something/nothing issue.  I am earnestly trying to see what Reg is seeing, but I do 
not.  If anyone sees his point and can translate it for me, I would be grateful.

Dennis Polis