Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 13:28:01 -0500
Subject: Re:   truth


Michael Eldred wrote:

> The only =93science=94 that can put metaphysics into question is ontological 
> knowledge, which latter underwent nothing less than a revolution, a radical 
> uprooting and rerooting in modernity, with the shift of the essencing of truth 
> to self-certainty, something entirely unknown to Aristotle.

But again, according to the texts I cited in both the Posterior Analytics and the 
Metaphysics, the reason Aristotle did not focus upon self-certainty was simply 
that he also considered the metaphysical "external" existence of what we 
experience to be absolutely certain (as a first principle of knowledge), thereby 
rendering "self-certainty" a trivial matter. Self-certainty was not "entirely 
unknown to Aristotle," since in the De Anima, he himself addresses the self-
awareness of sensation (425b13-18) and of intellect (429b9). Rather, Aristotle 
recognized the issue of self-certainty, but it was a minor matter because, for 
him, we can be immediately certain not only of self, but of what is "external" to 
the self. Similarly, Descartes focuses upon the certainty of the self in the 
Second Meditation precisely because he already rejected the certainty of 
external existence in the First Meditation.

> The cast of the 
> being of beings is recast in modernity, which doesn=92t mean at all that it is 
> superior to the Greek casting of being. Modern science is founded on another 
> metaphysics and another historical stance of Western humankind within the 
> totality of beings which is neither truer nor falser than Aristotle=92s 
> metaphysics. An =93advancement of science=94 (I presume you are referring primarily 
> to Newtonian physics) cannot put any metaphysical understanding into question 
> because it cannot, as natural science, question its own foundations. Only 
> _after_ a revolution or rupture in metaphysical thinking has occurred can one 
> then look back, say, at Aristotle, and discover that he was really saying the 
> same thing all along as we are saying today (=93the only difference is that...=94). 
> There are always historical traces that can be re-read and re-interpreted in 
> retrospect. The same thing was maintained e.g. regarding Newton=92s discoveries, 
> i.e. that Newtonian physics was all already to be found in Democritus. The same 
> thing was maintained with regard to Kant=92s critique of reason i.e. that Leibniz 
> had already done it all before. And the same thing is maintained with regard to 
> Heidegger, that Thomas or Aristotle had already thought the same thing. There is 
> never any shortage of explanations to hand to plaster over gaps and ruptures and 
> smooth them out. 

But again, there are specific texts which support my interpretation over the one 
which you have proposed - specifically, the ones in the Metaphysics and the 
Posterior Analytics. According to your interpretation, Aristotle should have 
never criticized the dream argument AS a violation of a necessary and 
absolutely certain first principle of demonstration, which is precisely what he 
did in the Metaphysics in conjunction with the Posterior Analytics. In fact, I 
have spoken to other philosophers who follow your line of interpretation, who 
have been similarly surprised when I showed them the texts I cited. One of 
them even said to me, "Aristotle never even talked about the dream argument," 
until I showed him the same texts. This makes me highly suspicious that the 
interpretation in question could benefit from a more precise study of Aristotelian 
philosophy. But as I have already said, I do not think that such a correction 
would threaten the essential Heideggerian analytic, since an escape from 
subject/object metaphysics remains so, whether that metaphysics began with 
Descartes or with Aristotle.

> > > What enables us to refer to things through language? 
> >
> > This, again, is the reception of forms into the human soul, which depends
> >  upon Aristotelian hylomorphism.
> 
> This reception of forms can only take place through a dimension that enables 
> such a measuring-through of the forms into the soul. Again, the Aristotelian 
> account does not see this problem, and it can only become a problem through 
> being itself and its truth becoming questionable. H.=92s philosophical starting 
> point, i.e. the impetus for asking the question of being in the first place, 
> came originally from the oft-repreated Aristotelian formulation =93pollachos 
> legetai to on=94: =93being is said in many ways=94, which in no way clarifies how 
> these different ways of saying being are unified in a unified meaning of being. 

Again, Aristotle specifically addresses that problem, through his notion of 
"analogy." A further non-metaphysical "clarification" is needed only if the one 
Aristotle gives is inadequate for the phenomena. One cannot simply start by 
assuming that a non-metaphysical answer is needed at all. Heidegger's 
analytic, as he himself emphasized in several places in SuZ, emerged partially 
from his perception of the inadequacy of the Cartesian analysis of the world. 
Obviously, if there were no such inadequacy, then the phenomena would 
demand nothing more. When you say that "the Aristotelian account does not 
see this problem," this already assumes that the problem must be solved non-
metaphysically, which obviously assumes that no metaphysical solution alone 
can be adequate.

Anthony Crifasi


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