Notes on Aristotle's Metaphysics (translated by Joe Sachs) Part II
The primus inter pares of being, and the tradition of language
Depiction of Pope Sylvester II
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“The first impasse [aporia] is about the things that we raised questions about in the prefatory chapters...such as whether it is possible or not to assert and deny one and the same thing at the same time”
(p. 35)
Here the principle of non-contradiction is essentially characterized as a solution to a primary aporia. This may arguably be the most primary, since aporia itself is the entangled unity of oppositions, of opposites that are not “supposed” to be entangled. Thus, this principle of non-contradiction is the solution to the aporia over aporia, the “first aporia” (though not necessarily in a temporally sequential sense). In order to untangle this “first aporia” we must lay down a severe law, a law which forbids these oppositions to be mixed up with one another. We can do this by superficially segregating oppositions one from the other, or we can do it by a directed “supercession” (or “sublation”) of the opposition. What exactly is this “directed supercession”, then? It is the “scientific” resolution of this contradiction, the discovery of an outlet wherein that which was an unserviceable unity becomes a rational and applicable trajectory. Such a “sublation” is never impartial. It is accomplished only by virtue of our having purposes and intentions in view, however much a Hegel might endeavor to conceal this partiality behind the stage decoration of “pure phenomenology” wherein contradictions resolve themselves. In reality, this “pure phenomenology” moves in response to the needs of a certain narrative, an unfolding drama whose general outline has been determined in advance. Moreover, as already mentioned above, any resolution achieved in this manner cannot be final. The knot is tangled and untangled. It is, in a manner of speaking, as tangled as or untangled we like, as much as our present purposes require or as our insatiable curiosity will allow. It is an indefinite process with “atomic waystations” (what I have elsewhere called the “atom of analysis”, the “analytic a posteriori”) determined by us after the fact.
Another point in relation to Aristotle's remarks on the “principle of non-contradiction”—it is precisely impossible to “assert and deny one and the same thing at the same time”, but that is neither here nor there. What should draw our attention is that we do “assert and deny one and the same thing at the same time”, whether explicitly or implicitly, more frequently than we would care to admit, that much of our thought is supported by paradox at its foundation (or, what is the same thing, bereft of all support in consequence of such paradox). This is the situation that we must come to terms with, whether or not it is possible. We must come to terms with the how's and what's and why's of this impossible situation. Given the nature of this situation, that also means that we must allow ourselves some measure (indeed, a rather liberal one) of confusion and ambiguity [1] without balking at the inconvenience.
1: “Ambiguity” in this instance is also “generic ambiguity”, the “driving both ways” of the concepts we invoke.
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The imagery of “cutting the knot” is itself susceptible of a double interpretation (as all symbols are)—on one side, the mystical eruption that breaks our bond to the world of oppositions (“cutting the knot” as dissolution of the “sutratma”), and, on the other side, the rational segregation that tells one opposite to go here and the other to go there. The latter was previously characterized in terms of untangling the knot, rather than cutting it, but either image can be serviceable here. The imagery of cutting, in relation to rational inquiry, emphasizes its static aspect, the positing of “timeless” concepts and laws. The imagery of untangling a knot into a string suggests the dynamic aspect, that of progressive inquiry. Either symbolism is valid here.
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“[1.] We say he knows it more who is acquainted with the what of the thing by what it is, rather than by what it is not...[2.] All demonstrative knowledge makes use of axioms...The axioms most of all are universal, and are the starting points of things...[3.] Is there more than one kind of knowledge about all beings?”
(p. 38-9)
It seems that in the preceding remarks (1, 2) he has suggestively answered the question subsequently posed (3). The three chief kinds of knowledge of all beings are that which knows beings by what they are not, i.e. rational knowledge (knowledge via directed ignorance), and the knowledge which knows beings by what they are, i.e. intellective knowledge, divisible into active and passive poles. That rational knowledge consists in knowledge from what things are not is evident in a number of ways. Firstly, all that knowledge which “reduces” things to various magnitudes and measures operates in just this way. Indeed, “reduction” is only a kind of poetic license here. The “thing” is not even “reduced” in this way. It is not as though the what of the thing is somehow compressed. On the contrary, the what is sidestepped altogether (and to “sidestep” is not to efface—indeed, in stepping around one pays deference, as it were, to that which one scrupulously avoids). These various magnitudes do not correspond to what it is, and are basically extrinsic to its being. Secondly, knowledge which proceeds from general or abstract principles (as opposed to knowledge which proceeds from universal principles) is essentially classificatory, and hence faces the same objection. Such knowledge does not effect an actual contact with the being of things, buts steps around their periphery, as it were, on the eggshells of discursivity. Classification does not transmit the taste (dhawq, gnosense) of things.
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“[1] There is a kind of knowledge that contemplates what is insofar as it is, and what belongs to it in its own right...[2] None of the other kinds of knowledge examines universally what pertains to being as being, but cutting off some part of it, they consider this attribute...[3] It belongs to one kind of knowledge also to contemplate beings as beings. And knowledge is always chiefly about what is first...[4] It also belongs to a kind of knowledge that is generically one to study as many forms as there are of being as being”
(p.53-5)
I think these passages provide a confirmation for my thesis of the “topographical complexity of being” (= unity = immediacy). To study being as being is to study also what belongs to it in its own right, together with all its “parts” (which are not really “parts per se”, except insofar as they are cut off) which are the same as to say its attributes. Presumably, as one attribute or another is “privileged”, we come to know being qua being in its different possible forms (this is comparable to the doctrine of the ishta devata in Hinduism). (3) here suggests a certain summary of Aristotle's ontology, and this in turn relates to my above thesis in a certain way. That summary is “knowledge qua knowledge knows being qua being, and being qua being is knowledge qua knowledge”. In that case, the most eminent kind of knowledge is a being-in the topographical complexity of immediacy [is this the most eminent kind, or is it subsidiary to “non-dual” knowledge in its most radical sense?].
Another quote in support of the above: “just as many forms as there are of oneness [= intellective knowledge] , so many also are there of being” (p. 55)
What happens when non-being is factored into these considerations? Consider the bracketed question above about “non-dual” knowledge. Such a knowledge would obviously be inclusive of non-being. Thus, the answer to the just posed question seems to be, roughly, “when non-being is factored in, one arrives at traditional metaphysics in the complete sense”, no more and no less. That is, the most eminent kind of knowledge is that wherein the topographical complexity of being is no longer distinct from the ineffability of non-being.
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“There are as many parts of philosophy as there are kinds of thinghood”
(p. 55)
Translated into Buddhist lingo, “there are as many forms of upaya as there are illusions” (provided we understand “philosophy” in the elevated, Pythagorean and Platonic sense). The independence of thinghood (ousia) is an illusion, or rather phantasia—compound of the intelligible and the rational, i.e. the mundus imaginalis. The sensory qua sensory and the physical qua physical (and physis is something vaster than, albeit inclusive of, the “gross senses”) precisely are a compound of intelligibility and rationality. Intelligibility already is a kind of “sensation”—dhawq. “Dhawq” (or “gnosense”) is converted into the “sensory” through being rendered explicit by the intervention of nothing. Likewise with the psychical—the intelligibility of form, mood (see Heidegger), etc is rendered explicit, an overt display with self-form and independence (to some, illusory, degree). Again, with intelligibility in its “primordial” sense, the intervention of nothing produces the (however illusory) independence of intelligible forms, in their multiplicity, readied for our contemplation. This does seem to justify, to a certain degree, Heidegger's criticisms of the history of philosophy following in the wake of Plato. However, he greatly exaggerates the transcendental qualities of this stream of philosophy, and assimilates it too intimately with modern trends, like Cartesianism. In actual fact, Heidegger himself is a closer kin (closer, yes, but no cigar) of Plato than any modern thinker in the mold of Descartes, Kant, Hegel, etc.
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“To being as being certain attributes are proper, it is to these about which it belongs to the philosopher to investigate the truth”
(p. 56)
In other words, and since being qua being already is knowledge qua knowledge, the task of the philosopher is to perform the incision which separates being and knowledge and thereby constitute the “truth” as a scientific discipline with largely discursive structure, which is also to say that the term “philosopher” is generically ambiguous and contains “within” it both the eminent Pythagorean and Platonic sense as well as this reversal of that sense. Or, as he says elsewhere, “it belongs to the philosopher to be capable of considering all things” (and it is worth noting that this “all things” could be taken in the sense of every distinctive thing as well as in the sense of a single totality, “the All”, mirroring the double sense of philosopher just mentioned).Thus, Aristotle, who seems to lean toward the “scientific” form of philosophy (and it is only a tendency—he is still far closer to Plato than to any modern philosophical trend), understands the philosopher and his task in a way which is distinct from the Platonic. The polarities are reversed. The Platonic philosopher is on the way to sagacity, but he makes use of science and dialectic as his stepping stones. The Aristotelian philosopher takes sagacity as an implicit and background factor, and turns his investigations, to a significant degree though not in an exclusive way, outwards, albeit not in a transcendental sense but in a sense in which this outward striving grounds itself intelligibly [1]—what then of my project, if Aristotle is the inverse polarity from Plato? It represents not a sterile unity of these polarities, but their union as a directed line of Promethean technoscientific activity, the “winged serpent”, the raising up of Atlantis from its slumber beneath the crashing waves of tradition and modernity. Communism.
1: With Aristotle, this outward investigation grounded in intelligibility generally has the form and significance of “entelecheia”. This is the intelligible factor which grounds his researches into nature and society so that they do not devolve into a mere empiricism born centuries too early.
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“The one who says that everything is true also makes the statement contrary to his own to be true...since so-called genera are universal...”
(p. 75, 81)
Aristotle's identification of genera with universals seems to follow from the reasoning already established in that first statement, namely, the location of truth in statements which is implied there. If truth is primarily found in statements then universals must be reduced to genera, since the latter are a discursive logos to the other's symbolic logos. Truth, eminently, however, is primarily intelligible, not rational and discursive. There seems to be a generally discursive bias (though not remotely as pronounced as that of modern philosophy, generally, and by no means exclusive of intellection) in the thinking of Aristotle, including in his account of intellect. That said, even this seeming identification of genera with universality does not hold at all points in this text. There are countervailing tendencies as well. This account has been greatly improved upon by his successors, like Meister Eckhart. Aristotle cannot be allowed the last word on intellect—indeed, not even the last word on “Aristotelianism”, of which he is not even the best representative.
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“Thinghood [ousia] refers to whatever parts are present in such things that mark them off and indicate a this”
(p. 88)
It now seems fairly clear where Heidegger got his conception of “nous” (i.e. as possessing an “ontic” character [in Being and Time??]) from. Aristotle must not be allowed to have the last word on Aristotelianism. That said, such a marking off, while suggestive of an ontic explicitness, does not have to be read that way. After all, the character of the “this” in question is not a foregone conclusion. Is it a kind of “object”, or is it an intelligible “this”, a being, symbolically transparent? Indications throughout this text seem to lean toward the latter interpretation.
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“Things are broken and crushed and bent and in general destroyed not by being capable but by being incapable”
(p. 92)
Potency is “forfeited” when an “independent thing” (ousia) breaks down. Definitely a link here with Dasien and the condition of vorhandenheit, especially given that Dasein is passive intellection, a condition in which potency takes the foreground and activity the background. This may explain Heidegger's account of nous as an “explicit pointing out of objects”. Active intellection (“noesis” par excellence) pushes potency into the background. This seems like a forfeiture of potency, but it is not. Thus, descriptions of actively intellective conditions in metaphysical literature would sound as if they described such an explicit subject-object relation, namely, because something becomes “explicit” in active intellection in a way analogous to the pointing out of an “object”. This is but an analogy, however. This “explicitness” of active intellect differs fundamentally from that which belongs to transcendental subjectivity, though there is an analogy between them, and this analogy is not merely incidental but indicative of an actual “kinship” of sorts, indeed, a derivation of the latter from out of the former, and the production of the possibility of the former from out of the impossible intervention of the latter (into primordial intellect). Presumably, given the character of “ontological inversion”, one could make similar analogies with reference to passive intellect (= Dasein), finding ways in which this mode of intellection meaningfully resembles transcendental subjectivity.
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“Being is meant in more than one way....It signifies what something is and a this, but also of what sort or how much something is, or any of the other things attributed in that way...The way that is first among these is what something is, which indicates its thinghood [ousia]”
(p. 117)
In other words, whatever being is, it is at first ineffable. Only afterwards do we divide it, theoretically, into these regions (what, this, how much, etc). It is something which is inclusive of these regions but not exhausted in their elaboration. Ousia, essence (here “thinghood”), is nominated first among these regions, a primus inter pares. For Aristotle, this “thinghood” has the definite connotation of entelecheia. It is a “what” which remains what it is through a work at being itself, like a planet in perpetual orbit, tracing a perfect circle. For Plato, ousia (which for him is also nominated primus inter pares among these regions of being), has the significance of a summit of contemplative ascent. When I contemplate a thing in its “thinghood” (ousia), I know it, and know that I have attained this thinghood, when my contemplation reaches a summit wherein the diversity of my researches can rest in the unity of the thinghood in question. It is a perfected vision in the heart, timeless and free of sensory content (though not necessarily unattended by such content, like servants at a wedding feast). Just why this “thinghood” is primary is an open question. Probably a good deal of reasons can be furnished to justify this priority, but I suspect that, at bottom, it is purely a question of received tradition, in this case the tradition of language. The Greek language has transmitted such a preference, and the philosopher accepts this tradition as an authoritative guide. This is not yet a modern philosophy which seeks to cut through intelligiblility with the transcendental edge of critique. In any case, because these regions of being are intelligible—this is not a transcendental division into concepts (at least not primarily, at this stage in the history of philosophy) but a mosaic of symbols—thinghood can stand as a genuine instance of the primus inter pares, in which and through which the other regions are fully presented, even if their presence is that of a potency (and potency is something perfectly intelligible—though “pure potency” is another matter, just as “pure act” is also, in a way, beyond intelligibility as we ordinarily understand it). Thus, when being is divided, and thinghood is brought into the foreground as the most eminent portion of being, it brings its background (namely, the other regions, not so privileged) with it—a dynamic I have referenced in my notes on De Anima.
Another passage worth looking at in terms of the traditional authority of the Greek language: “the one who studies nature must know not only about the material but also about what is disclosed in speech, and even more so” (p. 140-1)
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“...when we say what [a thing] is, we say not that it is white or hot or three feet long, but a human being or a god”
(p. 117)
A kind of tautology, given that this statement is meant to justify the choice of thinghood as the primus inter pares of being. When we say what a thing is, we say what it is as a thing. Very well, but it is being which is primarily in question here, not things, unless we take it as a foregone conclusion that being just is located in the region we call “thinghood” (ousia). If we do not, then why begin our assessment of beings by looking at things, by speaking of being in terms of things? Thus, Heidegger's criticism is justified, but that does not mean that he was correct at the expense of this way of thinking. His attempt to ground this “thinghood” in a prior condition of being-in-the-world is but another instance of bringing a region of divided being into the foreground as a primus inter pares, no less valid than the Aristotelian-Platonic preference for ousia, and no more valid than this. If Heidegger can show that thinghood emerges as a thematizing (e.g. in the form of vorhandenheit) out of a inconspicuous being-in-the-world, then the Aristotelian can just as well show that being-in-the-world is but the entelecheia of some presumed thing (“a human or a god”), perhaps with an emphasis on the potencies of that thing (indeed, Heidegger's conception of Dasein privileges passive intellection). We can derive one out of the other. This is related to what I have elsewhere called “ontological inversion”. If the Aristotelian-Platonic choice of ousia is, as I have contended above, fundamentally grounded in a received tradition, then it is certainly not without interest that Heidegger, too, attempts to justify his choice in terms of the Presocratics, as if he were going back to an even earlier tradition. In this case, I believe he was rather artificially constructing a tradition for himself, in his own image, but that is neither here nor there.
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“...thinghood is primary in every sense, in articulation, in knowledge, in time”
(p. 117)
Noteworthy that he mentions “articulation” first—which is to say, it is a matter of the received tradition of language, first and foremost, the other senses (knowledge of things, temporality of things) following in the wake of this tradition. “Time” here is also significant—for Aristotle, entelecheia is the criterion of genuine thinghood, their being-at-work-staying-themselves in time [1]. As for “knowledge”, it signals to us that thinghood is approached intellectively, that our conception is eminently intelligible. We are not speaking of objects but of beings, an indispensable distinction. This conception is not “ontic” in any diminutive sense, as Heidegger would tend to exaggerate it, since beings, grasped intellectively (e.g. as entelecheia) are, in fact, and in that capacity, grasped in their being, in the aura of their potency.
1: In the preceding paragraph he says “It is the thing that walks or sits or gets well that is one of the beings”.
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“...others believe that there are everlasting things that are more in number and that are more, just as Plato believed that the forms and the mathematical things are two kinds of independent things”
(p. 118)
In other words, unlike Aristotle, Plato does not segregate thinghood (ousia) by setting up entelecheia as the criterion of its genuineness. Therefore, many things that are not instances of a being-at-work-staying-itself in time get to count as “things”. Not only this, Plato evinces a definite preference for those things which just are what they are everlastingly as opposed to the thinghood which expresses itself temporally (as a being-at-work-staying-itself). This difference between Plato and Aristotle, again, seems to primarily issue from the difference in directionality, in Plato a contemplative ascent, in Aristotle a scientific inquiry, both, however, equally privileging intellect in its active mode as the ground of their philosophic activity, and both giving a fair hearing to the other direction (e.g. Plato in the Timaues, Aristotle in his paean to the “contemplative life”). Plato, here, seems to be the superior one, in an ontological sense, and Aristotle follows from out of Plato, by derivation, through making Plato's conception of ousia into an aporia to be puzzled out as a directed line of inquiry. Aristotle renders Platonic philosophy into a scientific inquiry directed at temporality, at thinghood as entelecheia. He does this in the usual way, by first rendering his predecessor into a caricature, as Plato, for instance, does with Heraclitus.
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“...the material becomes thinghood”
(p. 119)
In other words, thinghood (as entelecheia) is a certain range of potencies which “activates” in such a way that this potential range is preserved across time and is able to continue acting and perpetuating just this range. Potency is a coronal glow about a point of activity, and it is primarily this corona of potency which entelecheia “aims” to preserve, and it is the activity which does the preserving. Thinghood is only thinghood (for Aristotle) so long as it is able to become thinghood, and it is this material potency which enables it to become (as distinct from just being eternally). Entelecheia (= thinghood) is the preservation of a range of potency through temporal activity. He goes on to say, “...coming into being would be impossible if there were nothing present beforehand” (p. 130). This something which is present beforehand is, eminently (i.e. not in the sense of a chain of efficient causes, but in a more fundamentally grounding way), the material which, in its capacity as a defined range of potentialities (emphasis on range, the form of this range), is also the formal cause [1]. Entelecheia, the “final cause”, in this scheme, is the combined being-at-work-staying-itself which by acting preserves this range.
1: Which is to say, as a defined range (of potentialities) susceptible of being perpetuated across time, we call it a “formal cause”, and as potentiality “per se” we call it “material cause”.
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“For learning happens in this way in all areas, by way of what is less knowable by nature, toward what is more knowable”
(p. 120)
In practice, this often takes the form of rendering a thing less knowable as the preliminary to the directed inquiry aiming at another knowledge. This is done by making one's philosophical predecessor into a caricature, thereby converting his thought into an aporia to be puzzled out. Aristotle very much spells this out here, in this characterization, describing knowledge as such a directed line, a “by way of” that goes “toward what”, from knowledge to knowledge.
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Book VII, Ch. 4-5: One can think of this section as an attempt to justify the received tradition of language, a gesture which is as scientific as it is absurd—absurd because, fundamentally, the reason that one justifies it is because one first receives it, and not the reverse, though the justification itself seems to intimate such. Nevertheless, such justifying activity is, in essence, scientific, especially to the degree that it is conducted rigorously. In effect, Aristotle is engaging in exegesis. This exegesis of the “scripture” that is the Greek language concludes by stating that “definition belongs to thinghood alone”. This is the “I am that I am” of the Aristotelian Bible. In another re-statement of this “I am that I am”, found several chapters down, he states “Therefore, just as in demonstrative reasoning, thinghood is the source of everything; for syllogisms come from what something is”. Here the sacred tradition of the Greek language is taken as an authoritative source in relation to everything. The Greek language, when rendered into a demonstrative-syllogistic form, that is, when language as such is made into its own exegesis, brings out thinghood (ousia) as primus inter pares of the regions of divided being. Here language itself declares “And I say to thee: That thou art ousia; and upon this rock I will build my church”.
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“...form or thinghood does not come into being...The causal responsibility attributed to the forms, in the sense that some people are in the habit of speaking of the forms...”
(p. 132)
The first part of this quotation is only a short leap away from Plato—form here is timeless, does not come into being. It is in the second part of this quotation that Aristotle seems to implicitly make that leap, since he acknowledges that the manner of speaking which nominates forms as a “this” (he asks: “does [form] instead indicate a certain kind, without being this and determinate?” [p. 133]), a determinate entity, is with “some people” merely a habit of speech. Undoubtedly Plato is numbered among them. His language, in the dialogues, is not always intended to be technically precise, jargon. He speaks of form poetically, as a determinate this, but the content of his account, the meaning of his account, is of form in its universality, as the intelligibility encompassing and implied by any determinate this. Aristotle, who, earlier in the Metaphysics, had reduced Plato into a caricature as the preliminary to making his thought an aporia, has but re-produced Plato's intelligibility in a more explicit and more “technical” form. To be sure, this re-production is not the same as the original (Platonic) production. This is not copying but imitation, mimesis. Plato has been produced again as something other than himself. Nevertheless, it is a re-production of the same—it is this “same” itself, and no other, which has been rendered differently. This aspect should not be exaggerated, however. Plato was not Aristotle's only source of inspiration as a philosopher. He was, for instance, a judicious student of Nature itself. Nevertheless, insofar as Aristotle does work within a certain inheritance bequeathed by Plato, and insofar as his “problematization” of Plato is effected toward intelligibility (in its fully intellective sense), he can but re-produce one and the same intelligibility in a different way. Intelligibility is intelligibility. Aristotle is an intellective thinker. He is not yet a modern philosopher. A modern philosopher encountering Plato does not re-produce intelligibility as intelligibility. The modern philosopher effects, at best, a transcendental reduction of intelligible transcendence. In that respect (though not in every respect), Heidegger is not a modern thinker, but an antique thinker, a close kin of Plato and Aristotle, albeit an apple that fell quite far from the tree of active intellection.
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“What does the generating is something of the same sort as the thing generated...for it is a human being that generates a human being—unless something is generated contrary to nature, such as a horse that's half-donkey”
(p. 132)
Aristotle is acknowledging here the possibility (a kind of impossibility) of a kind which re-produces itself as something other than itself, i.e. revolutionary entelecheia. Moreover, he admits this power even to non-human beings, though Aristotle was unfamiliar with the modern theory of evolution, so his ascription of this power to nature generally takes only the form of a sporadic mixing of breeds and species (e.g. the mule). The sporadic mixing of breeds is not yet an entelecheia, nor is it quite revolutionary, but it does bear a certain resemblance to it, a kind of “abstract moment” of revolutionary entelecheia, and, more crucially, the capacity for “generating contrary to nature” which the mixing of breeds and species evinces, implies quite directly the reality of revolutionary entelecheia. This generation contrary to nature is a generation by nature of nature, including the generation of the “artificial” world of human beings, that “un-natural” portion of nature par excellence.
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“For it is impossible for an independent thing to consist of independent things present in a fully active way”
(p. 146)
This Aristotelian principle is erected as a defense against the onrushing tide of contradictions, the overlapping waves of distinction and indistinction, implied by the insight nominated “pratityasamutpada”, the doctrine of “dependent co-emergence”. This doctrine is precisely that of the total dependence of independent things, the “vortex” of non-independence that independent natures continually collapse into, that each independent thing is the repository of every other independent thing except for itself. This Aristotelian principle is also a foundation for rigorous scientific activity. Therefore, even if the insight of pratityasamutpada is eminently truer than this Aristotelian principle, it is not necessarily more scientific. Science is founded on a directed ignorance, an ignorance oriented with reference to truth. In the next paragraph, which I will not reproduce here, Aristotle describes, in a highly precise way, the aporia which is susceptible of giving birth to the insight of pratityasamutpada. That Aristotle does not follow through with this aporia in that particular direction, goes without saying. He does not sever the Gordian Knot of this aporia into the instantaneous insight of pratityasamutpada, an insight which would perforce abolish inquiry (at least on its own level). He is at bottom a scientific thinker. Therefore, he untangles this knot into a directed line of inquiry.
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“Now none of these examples [of artificial products] is an independent thing [an ousia]...Nature alone is the thinghood in destructible things [such as houses]”
(p. 157, 159)
From a certain point of view, Aristotle's stance here appears “anti-technological”. He does not accord technology the putative “privilege” of getting to count as a genuine ousia. On the other hand, such a strict scission of artifice from nature precisely is the precondition for the development and march of technology (at least at this historical stage). In that respect, Aristotle is the technological thinker par excellence. Not only does he set him self up as an inverse polarity to Plato, turning away from “the first cause” (that the “Absolute”, if you want to call it that, is here re-conceived as a cause turned toward the world”, rather than a summit for the sage's contemplation, is already significant [1]) and toward worldly-scientific inquiry, but within world he makes a very fine incision between artificiality and nature. That this incision is meant only as a description, and not as some Promethean injunction for technological development, in a way makes it even more radical. A mere injunction to technological development, which does not begin by establishing itself as a truth, would seem to run against the momentum of things. Technological development runs against the boundaries of nature, the “moirai”, but not against nature's momentum—on the contrary, it is precisely this momentum, nature's necessity, that it wields against nature. Aristotle set up a scientific truth, modern out of its time (and, as modern science, a kind of directed ignorance—speaking strictly, nature and artifice should not be separated), whose acceptation continually facilitates all Promethean injunctions for technological development. Aristotle was an inadvertent Promethean (in a way, perhaps, comparable to the bourgeois class as the force that paves way for Proletarian rule, in spite of itself).
1: It goes without saying that both tendencies can be found in both thinkers, but we can take Plato's Timaeus, wherein he describes the “descending path” from the summit of the Real, through the demiurgus and into the world of multiplicity, as an instructive example. Even here, where Plato seems to adopt a stance toward the world, the reality behind this appearance is the reverse. This image of cosmological procession is a symbolic tapestry woven for the sake of our contemplation, so that we might be “without excuse”, for “the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead”.