The Human Question

Galileo replaced concern with the nature of movement with concern with the measurable characteristics of movement (first of all, velocity). But when we say something moved so many miles/Km an hour, we are talking, in a sense about a kind of disposition. Not the sort of disposition to act that exists when something is inactive. But the disposition to continue to act a certain way. It seems to me that Galileo, in focusing on the measurement, took this disposition as a given, whereas Aristotle, in defining motion as the act of a potency as such, is much more interested in the nature of this disposition.

I am trying to remember what I learned from the study of physicalism... it think it is that to each physical state there corresponds only one mental state. Suppose the above is true but its converse is false. That is, for any mental state, there is a multiplicity of possible physical states: doesn't this claim amount to an application of the Aristotelian understanding of nature? I'm not thinking about how matter receives a new form; rather, I'm thinking of how something keeps its identity during various incidental changes. For example, I remain a human being in virtue of my substantial form while standing, sitting, talking, snoring, blogging, playing piano, etc. One and the same form must have a suitable proximate matter. But the mere fact that an entity continues to possess the same form does not imply that the proximate matter has remained identical in every way. My proximate matter remains well-suited to the form that makes me human, yet that matter fluctuates in v...

Philosophers recognize that a new, higher-level property can become present in matter--a property that is not merely the sum of the lower-level properties belonging to matter. Philosophers speak of this new property as emerging from from its material constituents. That is, the many constituents together possess this one emergent property (e.g., a mental state). I would say, however, that it makes more sense to say that the property is the property of one being. Otherwise, the property would be a mere effect of the many parts (epiphenomenalism) or the mere summation of the properties of the parts (reductive materialism). Action follows being. So if there is an action/property that is not reducible to the sum of the lower level actions/properties, then it must be the property of a being that is likewise not reducible. I would direct the following criticism to those who think of the parts as the real entity. why should the lower-level properties be said to below to lower-level beings...

This thesis by Donald Davidson states that mental events are .... surprise!.... anomalous. They are such b/c they can't be accounted for in terms of the laws of nature that apply to non-living things. They are something more than non-mental events, even though they are purely physical. If we take this as a description of perception (and set aside questions about the human soul, with its knowledge of universal truths), then Davidson seems to be onto something. And the "monism" here might be taken as "non-dualism," i.e., as not precluding an Aristotelian hylomorphism.

Okay, that was a subject heading that I couldn't resist posting, even though it doesn't quite represent what I'm about here. Intelligent design theorists look at living things qua engineered, that is, as complex machines. They seek evidence of an engineer in these machines. There are two ways that one could do so. First, one can look for evidence of "pre-engineering." In this case, one looks at how the very constitution of the non-living world both could have been otherwise (and not have been conducive toward the evolution of life forms) but is as it is. Either we won the cosmic lottery or an engineer has been at work at the very beginning. The anthropic principle is such a theory. Secondly, one could look at stages of the development of life from non life or of more complex from simpler forms of life and attempt to show that some tinkering has been going on. This argument would be something like the following: given the earlier state of affairs, there is ...

This is a fallacy I just learned about. Or rather, I just learned the name for a fallacy I was already more-or-less aware of. One commits this fallacy by trying to describe something that is inanimate as if it had feelings: i.e., fire "tries" to rise, etc. I guess those who reject teleology see Aristotelians as committing this fallacy, but I think Aristotelians themselves would insist that they don't literally mean "tries to" when describing the behavior of inanimate things. Something analogous, but what is it?