Intellectual History, Metaphysics, Philosophy

Aristotle’s Actual Answer to Plato

by Dave Seng

Science can never dispense with Reality in the metaphysical sense of the term. — Max Planck

In many introductions to philosophy courses and textbooks, it is typical, to begin with Plato and Aristotle. The textbook or instructor always begins by comparing and contrasting the differences each thinker had regarding the ultimate nature of reality. This is done for good reason and is important for a foundational understanding of philosophy itself. I have covered these differences in my writings (here and here). It is correct to say that Plato believed in an ultimate transcendent realm of the forms (or universals, or Ideas), while Aristotle, his student, stressed the concrete nature of reality itself and the fact that forms and essences are in the objects themselves. In this sense, concrete means “grown together” or the “coalition of particular things”. For Aristotle, all physical objects have an essential nature to them, which makes them the kind of thing they are. “How else would we understand what a horse is without the nature of the horse inherently existing in the horse itself”? Aristotle would ask. A dead horse is a corpse, not a horse. Horseness is the formal constituent element of the horse just as humanity is the shared essential nature of President Trump, Queen Elizabeth II, and Dave Mustaine. Of course, essence is not limited to living things but that is a topic for another post. The broader point is that being is common to all things and I think that is Aristotle’s real answer to Plato. It is Plato’s misplaced universal. It is an answer which goes beyond the common textbook discussion.

Aristotle’s actual answer to Plato rests in a passage from his Metaphysics, Book VI, chapter 1. In his quest for the universal and the unity of being, Aristotle explains that the concept of being goes beyond mere genus and nature:

One might raise the question whether first philosophy is in any way universal or is concerned merely with some genus and some one nature. In the case of the mathematical sciences, their objects are not all treated in the same manner; geometry and astronomy are concerned with some nature, but universal mathematics to all. Accordingly, if there were no substances other than those formed by nature, physics would be the first science; but if there is an immovable substance, this would be prior, and the science of it would be first philosophy and would be universal in this manner, in view of the fact that it is first. And it would be the concern of this science, too, to investigate being qua being, both what being is and what belongs to it qua being.

Aristotle was right. All the immediate objects of human cognition are sensible things. In response to Plato’s notion of transcendent forms, Aristotle would reply that being itself is universal because it is common to all things. Being is common to all because it can be applied to any act of existing (in Aristotelian terms, “to be in act” means to exist). Additionally, to exist means to stand out of nothing, and to exist means to have being. Being is the universal that participates in all concretely existing things. That there is a metaphysical reality uniting all physical things should not be a surprise to modern readers. The German physicist and mathematician Max Planck said something very similar, “Metaphysical reality does not stand spatially behind what is given in experience, but lies fully within it” (Planck, Scientific Autobiography, 98, italics in the original). Planck was certainly a kindred spirit with Aristotle.

Aristotle teaches us, in response to Plato, that since metaphysics studies beings insofar as they are beings, the science of first philosophy will always have being in the concrete as its subject matter. The true universal of being in itself, understood in the concrete sense, is common to all. This, at least in part, is what unites the one with the many, and one of the most significant insights Aristotle shared with the Western intellectual tradition. Aristotle brings us the missing piece of reality which Plato missed. The study of being as being is the true science of metaphysics.

Metaphysics, Philosophical Theology, Uncategorized

A Few Thoughts Regarding the Principle of Causality

by Dave Seng

The principle of causality states that everything that comes into being is caused by virtue of something outside itself. However, the effect can not be greater than the cause. Let us apply this to human existence. If there is intelligence in the effect (humanity), there must be intelligence in the cause (because like produces like). But a universe ruled by blind chance has no intelligence. Therefore, there must be a cause of human intelligence that transcends the universe, a divine mind behind the physical universe.

Classical Apologetics, Intellectual History, Metaphysics, Natural Theology, Philosophy, Theology

A Critique of Presuppositionalism With Dr. Nathan Greeley.

by Dave Seng

I would like to thank my good friend Steve Hoover for telling me about this video.

Here is one of the best discussions and critiques of the presuppositional apologetic method I have seen in a long time. Dr. Jordan Cooper and Dr. Nathan Greeley are Lutheran scholars who seek to revive the Lutheran scholastic method and corresponding classical approach to apologetics.

For about twenty years I have made the point, much to the disappointment of my presuppositional friends, that the presuppositional method is nothing more than Kantian idealism. This video does a very good job of explaining why that is the case. (Note: Dr. Greeley uses the term anti-realism for Kantian idealism, both anti-realism and idealism hold the position that the mind is ultimate in determining reality. So when they speak of anti-realism, they are essentially talking about idealism.)

Idealism is an error because we do not determine reality. Therefore, philosophy and Christian apologetics must start with metaphysics, the nature of reality as it is, and not with theories of knowledge (epistemology). Our knowledge of reality, does not objectively determine reality. Our theories of reality can be wrong.

A couple of terms to know before going into the discussion.

Presuppositionalism (which I have found a few Lutherans to be adherents of) is the idea that mankind is so fallen (due to the noetic effects of sin) that there is no possible intellectual commonality between the Christian apologist and the non-Christian. There is no place for the ministerial use of reason. The apologist must first assume the truth of the existence of God and the reliability of the Bible as the proper starting point for doing apologetics. In other words, the apologist must presuppose the very things his non-theistic friend rejects in the first place.

One thing Dr. Cooper and Dr. Greeley could have pointed out is the circularity of the presuppositional approach. This is a logical fallacy which is formally called the petitio principii (begging of the question). This is an error that occurs when the conclusion of an argument is already present, usually disguised or vague, in the premises. It is seen as circular because the conclusion is present in the premises, and no real progress is made. (I am aware of Van Til’s and Frame’s response to this critique, but that should really be another post. It is enough to say, here, that when one reasons with correct premises and conclusions, a good and valid rational argument is a virtue and an expression of the ministerial use of reason. Rationality is not an intellectual or moral failing.)

Another term that comes up in the discussion is realism. In metaphysics, realism is the doctrine that Forms, or essences, possess objective reality. In modern philosophy, realism is the concept (contrasted with idealism) that physical objects exist independently of perception, the mind, or theory of reality. For realists, theories of reality, theories of knowledge, and perceptions are logically separate from objective reality itself.

Regarding realism, the name was given to a certain philosophic way of thought first inaugurated by Plato and Aristotle, developed and refined in the Middle Ages, and still living at the present time. This view includes three basic theses: 1. The world is made up of substantial beings really related to one another, which exist independently of any human opinions or desires. Reality is objective. 2. These substances and relations which make up the world can be known by the human mind as they are in themselves. 3. Such knowledge can offer sound and immutable guidance (the law of nature) for individual and social action.

Christian theology, philosophy, and apologetics should always start with a firm understanding of realism. As Dr. Cooper and Dr. Greeley point out, the Lutheran Scholastics understood this point very well.

I could say more but this discussion is too important and just fantastic. Enjoy.