Aristotle and Rational Discovery: Speaking of Nature 9781472597878, 9780826496874

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For David . . .

Introduction

Between Reason and NatureöRereading Aristotelian Rationality

In his Commentary on Euclid's Elements,1 Proclus appears struck by a curious tendency he sees in Aristotle's understanding, on the one hand, of the relation of mathematics to nature and, on the other, that of logic to nature. More speci¢cally, Proclus draws our attention to the fact that Aristotle criticizes mathematical explanations of nature, arguing that they abstract from physis. Of course, on Proclus' reading, Aristotle fails to think clearly about the relation of the sensible and mathematical. For him, Aristotle's assertion that mathematical objects are derived through an abstraction from sensible beings indicates a fundamental error in his physical thinking. Rather, Proclus argues mathematical beings are inscribed upon the soul as universals in advance of sensuous perception and that these universals ``add perfection to the imperfect sensibles and accuracy to their impreciseness'' (11). In this way, Proclus wants to argue that attending to sensuous beings unhinges one's logic and knowledge from true nature, while mathematical beings secure an accurate account of it. Yet, as indicated above, Aristotle argues for the reverse; the accuracy of logical disclosure of nature, for him, is better secured by attending to physical beings. Physical and particular beings give themselves as logical principles (archai) somehow already, while mathematical beings are abstractions of this sensuous experience. For instance, in chapter two of book two of the Physics, Aristotle explicitly denies that mathematics o¡ers an account of nature as such. ``The mathematician does busy himself about the things mentioned,'' Aristotle writes, speaking of natural bodies, ``but not insofar as each is a limit of a natural body'' (193 b 35).2 Rather, the mathematician assesses the surfaces, lengths, and solids of natural bodies by abstractionöby separating these ``quanti¢able'' characteristics from the essential nature of the being and its primary activity. Yet, strangely, as Proclus remarks, Aristotle does not come to the same conclusion about logic and its relationship to nature. Good logic3öand the broader structure into which it is situated: reason (logos)öwe can therefore conclude, is not an abstraction or a separation from the sensuous and particular beings of nature, for Aristotle, but rather logos must somehow be thought of as an expression of these beings of nature; or, perhaps better, logical structures, in contrast to mathematical structures, must be included when speaking of generations and other activities initiated by the natural archai of beings in the world.4

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To be sure, the relation of physis to logos is not exactly unambiguously systematic in Aristotle. While I would hesitate to say that Aristotle holds logos to be exactly like a tree growing in the forest, nevertheless, there remain parallels in his accounts of logos to trees, insofar as (like logos) trees possess motions which re£ect their nature5 and are (like logos) uni¢ed and continuous (suneches). Let me make this crucial characteristic of the Aristotelian understanding of living beings clear. In the Physics,6 we learn that individual beings display a continuityöwhich is to say, all the potential limits and boundaries of a being are united as one limit against the world through the work and/or activity (energeia) that gives the being its identity. In the case of a tree, we may see it as a gathering of leaves, roots, a trunk, as well as branches, but these things are not separable beings from the being of the tree; the limits that separate leaves from branches and roots from the trunk are dissolved by the primary work, which involves the tree as a whole. The tree's activity encompasses all of the various parts of the tree, making all the parts of the tree continuous and uni¢ed. Continuity is consequently contrasted, in Aristotle, with contiguity:7 which would be exhibited by the work of the bird, for instance, which makes use of the tree for the sake of housing. The bird and its nest are contiguous with the tree, while the limbs, leaves, and roots are continuous with it. The bird and the tree are distinguishable by the fact that they possess two di¡erent unifying principles (archai) of activity. Thus, the source of continuity in a being lies precisely in the being's energeia (the primary work) which is engendered within the being by its archeª, its ruling principle of nature. As the reader will no doubt recall, Aristotle thinks that the generation and primary work of a tree is governed by the archeª of the being, its form, which exists already within the acorn and accompanies and directs the emergence of the infant sprout all the way to its full, mature bloom. When the archeª of the tree is absent; when the ruling principle is no longer compelling the activity that oversees the generation and self-maintenance of the tree, the tree dies. Its singular, continuous limit loses its gathering power and the tree's leaves, stems, branches, and roots are no longer animated and brought together by the power of the natural archeªöthe various parts are divided: which is to say, merely contiguous and no longer continuous. Now, in conjunction with the consequence of Proclus' observations of Aristotle aboveöthat, while mathematical approaches to physical beings do not allow one awareness of their archai, certain dispositions of logos doöour remarks about the continuous activity that animates a natural being in its generation, self-maintenance, and self-preservation lead us to the following surprising observation: it is the very same archeª which both governs this natural, continuous activity and governs our dependable, truthful, rational remarks that seek to discover and display the essence of the being in speech. The natural archeª somehow shapes the unfolding of our syllogistic and epagogic procedures and conclusions, giving them continuity.8 In contrast to mathematical formulations, what counts as good logic for Aristotle needs to locate its motivating source within this activity or work that uni¢es the limits and boundaries of the natural being, qua natural. Remarkably, proper reasoning (logos) about and proper

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awareness (gnoªsis) of a being must be compelled by the ¢rst archeª that also governs the generating and self-preserving motions of the being itself. With this, I di¡er from Terence Irwin's governing understanding of archai, an understanding given at the beginning of his important Aristotle's First Principles. There, Irwin explains that ¢rst principles are described both as propositions and as ``existing things.'' Up to this point, my remarks above are fully in accord with his. However, he then goes on to say that ``actually, existing things are ¢rst principles because they explain other things.''9 As is clear from my above remarks, I think propositions are only ¢rst principles in Aristotle insofar as they are the articulation of the form of the existing thing in speech (a de¢nition, for instance). First and foremost, the archai are existing things, and not because they explain other things, but because they possess a singular, continuous nature that compels and governs both the generation and self-preservation of the being as well as the syllogisms and other speech comportments by which we become truthfully aware of the being. What does this observation mean for our own understanding of rational discovery in nature? Does it not make problematic any account of Aristotelian discovery as a ``metaphysical realist conception''?10 How foreign and strange must Aristotle's understanding sound to anyone with a relatively modern understanding of reason and rational exercise. Nature, here, is not something to be possessed or mastered through reason, but is precisely that which compels and governs human reason in its pursuits. When humans are correctly attuned toward it, nature is itself the source of the rational motion toward truthöshaping and molding syllogisms and other rational forms. Yet, there are even more explicit examples through which we can see Aristotle treating structures of logic (and thereby logos) as intimately linked to natural beings, examples that demand more re£ection for an account of the nature of the logos/physis relation in Aristotle.

1. Categories of beings At the beginning of chapter two of his Categories, for instance, Aristotle begins the endeavor of bringing natural beings more clearly into view by his signature procedure of example and analysis. In this preliminary description leading toward his articulation of the categories, the things that are (ta onta) become di¡erentiated in accordance with four stated ways that things can possibly be. ``Of beings (ta onta),'' writes Aristotle, Some are said of some underlying thing but are not in any underlying thing . . . Others are in some underlying thing but are not said of any underlying thing . . . Other things, again, are both said of some underlying thing and also are in an underlying thing . . . Finally, there are things which are neither in an underlying thing nor said of it. (1a 20^1b 5)11

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With this preliminary sketch in an early chapter of the manuscript, one can clearly intuit the later, more re¢ned and distinguished account of the categories. However, we should here pause and re£ect upon what Aristotle considers to be discussed in this preliminary description that leads to the fundamental logical/rational tools (organon) of his thought. Of course, the matter under discussion here consists of the building blocks of a certain logical systemöAristotle clearly situates the categories within a center around which human knowledge circulates. Yet, one might nevertheless be surprised by the equation of the categories with what Aristotle calls ta onta or beings. At the beginning of Categories, Aristotle does not try to account simply for the rational procedures by which humans appropriate nature and the knowledge of it. Rather, I would like to argue that Aristotle's primary concern in the Categories, insofar as he speaks about beings, lies precisely within the question of physis: what are physei-beings? How are beings? What most fundamentally presents itself in the encounter with any particular being? As such, we are not speaking of abstract, merely formal structures which belong only to human cognition. That is to say, Aristotle does not here lay out a categorical structure with the aim of claiming, as in Kant, that humans have certain conceptual tools by which they acquire appearances of beings in nature. Kant's categories forbid experiential access to things (ta onta), leaving the things of nature12 untouched and treating their appearances as shaped by human cognition. Aristotle's categories, on the contrary, not only provide passage to the beings of nature, but also they might even be said to be these beings of nature insofar as any given being is a ``this'' of such and such ``a kind'' and ``magnitude'' in this particular ``place,'' and so on. To be sure, the Categories betrays a concern for speaking correctly about beings, as do all of the ``logical'' texts, but in this work I will show that the gathering power of legein (in the widest understanding of this term) which discloses the world in a meaningful horizon does not reside in between the eyes and the ears for Aristotle, but rather the natural forms (eideª ) of beings themselves are ultimately the compelling Ursprungen for dependable statements about them. Categories are addressed as the beings that they are, in Aristotle, they are not human structures that subsequently become applied to beings. If we are to argue that Aristotle believes what he writes in the Categories above, then we have to be ready not only to accept the claim that the categories are beings that are, for him, but also to think through precisely what that means; after all, a world in which what we otherwise call logical/rational structures are natural beingsöindeed, are the natural beingsömust appear quite foreign and strange to the modern reader. Yet this is precisely what Aristotle says here. However, allow me to make clear that I do not thereby argue that Aristotle's categories are somehow hypostatized beings or separate forms. I am not suggesting that categories are beings among other beings. The Categories, indeed, describe what every independent, uni¢ed physei-being is in its manifold nature. In the remarks above, I want to propose that when one encounters a being and asks oneself ``what shows itself here?'' Aristotle argues that a ``this,'' a ``so much'' and a ``such,'' and so on, are there and not merely in thought, so that

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this logos-structure is how the being displays itself by its nature. At the same time, the intimacy between logical/logos structures and physei-beings is not limited to this logical treatise but also emerges in the texts on nature. In the Physics, for example, one of Aristotle's principal concerns is to think through natural motion. After having provided the historical background into the question of nature with book one and then further narrowing the questionframe of nature by intimately linking physis with motion in book two, Aristotle begins to more clearly draw what motion is (ti esti) into focus; for, ``ignoring motion, it is necessary also to be ignorant of physis.''13 In order to lay the ground for a de¢nition (orismos) of motion, Aristotle begins by ``narrowing'' the ¢eld of physical investigation to absolutely everything that is in physis: And ¢rst, as we said, we must take up motion. There is that which is fully and actively itself, but also that which is what it is, in part, only potentially: either being a this, being this much, being of this kind or similarly with the other ways of attributing being . . . and there is nothing other than the things named. (My italics, 200 b 25 ¡.)14 For Aristotle, it is not only those beings that are fully at-work15 as the beings that they are that admit of being. Aristotle's notion of being expands to include also that which has potency for being. Thus, we might argue that, of the ways to be, for Aristotle, we can most broadly conceive of that which is as, on the one hand, being fully at-work (that which does not move: perhaps the prime mover),16 and, on the other, as that which is both potentially and fully at-work (everything that moves). Yet, in the speech-comportment of laying bare everything that is in order to achieve a de¢nition of motion, what are the things that have the way of both being-at-work and potentiality? Aristotle says here that they can be any of the ``categories of being'' (ton tou ontos kategorion).17 If one considers the passage carefully, one cannot conclude that Aristotle is arguing that, of all the things that are, they reveal themselves through a kind of logically structured (Kantian) self-consciousness. The nature of a being does not disclose itself through these abstracted, strictly cognitive logical structures. Rather, Aristotle says that everything that is both potentially and fully at-work is a multiplicity gathered into unity, qua categories of being. The ordered-multiplicity of every being belongs to it, by nature, ¢rst; and only subsequently do human beings perceive it as such. Thus, one can argue that, for Aristotle, there inheres within physis a structure of logos; as such, we can say that nature possesses (or even is) a principle for gathering (legein) into continuity; and human rationality must be thought along the lines of its source in nature. Quite contrary to a modern theory of self-consciousness, Aristotle points to a self-gathering18 structure within physis itself, a structure that, while certainly logical to human beings, nevertheless ¢rst originates in physis rather than in the cognition of a human being. As such, logical structure would need to be thought in Aristotle as a kind of pathos. Rather than an anthropomorphic structure that is willfully applied to

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the world for the sake of the mastery and possession of nature, these structures shine forth out of the beings themselves. Beings (and their archai) need to be thought as providing the shape of the logical structures into which our human awareness of them becomes possible. With this assertion, I wish to second the suggestion of Claudia Baracchi who has recently sought to assert the obscure, di¤cult origin of knowledge [in Aristotle, even in Analytics and Topics] . . . knowledge out of agreement that, precisely because axiomatic, is less a matter of ``epistemic certainty,'' let alone of ``objectivity'' . . . than of shared belief or conviction . . . What is thus intimated is a certain impossibility of metaphysics understood as emancipation from physis and, mutatis mutandis, of theoria understood as transcendence of praxis . . . knowledge (the articulation of reason) [is] shown in its dependence on physis and praxis.19 While I want to adopt her concern to allow the deep complexity of the origin of knowledge and truth in Aristotle to show themselves from out of their textual sources, and while I wish also to con¢rm how deeply connected these things are to nature and to praxis, my reading di¡ers from hers insofar as I do not think that Aristotle unhinges the origins of knowledge and truth in human beings from the activity of reason, or rational discovery. I wish to distinguish my account from hers insofar as I argue that, if one performs a certain phenomenological reading of the activity of logos (which includes rationality) from its source in the Aristotelian texts, the conception of rationality that shows itself there will be capable of accomplishing the above stated goals without retreating into a hypostatized stance of the scienti¢c white-coat of objectivity. Perhaps Baracchi's well-founded attempts to tie knowledge and contemplation back to their source in praxis and nature have led her to too narrowly construe ``reason,'' qua logos, in a way that is not congruent with the Aristotelian texts.20 My labor here then will be to perform a certain suspension of the post-modern suspicion of the concept of reason in order to see if a careful reading of Aristotle can o¡er us a dependable ``rationality'' which avoids the traps and dichotomies to which modern abstract reason(s) has given rise. A principal argument animating this work will be that, ¢rst and foremost, reasoning is an activity that seeks to o¡er an account of how the world gathers itself (legein) to itself and makes itself known by its nature; as such, reasoning ¢nds itself moved by sensuous, embodied archai in the world. Rather than a structure of rules by and through which humans can arti¢cially secure themselves dependability against a back-drop of chaotic nature, the organon, I want to argue, describes the di¡erent ways that beings show up and, thereby, make us aware of their continuity (sunecheia), their own natural source of dependability.21 We shall see that, in Aristotle, for a logical statement to bear continuity22 and unityöits measure of certaintyöit must re£ect the continuity that secures the being about which the statement is made. Thus, insofar as categories are the beings that are, for Aristotle, these ur-logical structures cannot be simply human words and concepts divorced from the world. Moreover, we might even

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say that the world gives itself to us as categories. It would seem that perceiving a being not by our nature, but by a being's own natureöqua the category of ousiaöis perceiving something by its energeia, indeed, by its primary, ful¢lled nature. Thus, at least in the above quoted remarks in the Physics, any given being in physis shows itself as a gathering-into-unity of a multiplicity of beings and this multiplicity Aristotle calls ``categories.'' Further, the categories are the beings of nature which belong to the class of beings that reveal themselves both potentially and fully at-work. Yet these are not ``forms of thought'' into which we stu¡ beings; within the speech-register of this passageöthat is, within an argument which seeks to o¡er a broad account of what shows itself in natureö these are the beings themselves as they give themselves. Only subsequent to being in this more primary way are the categories taken up into their logical place in speech by humans. Perhaps we can say that, rather than categories derived from tables of judgment, this kind of logic would be derived from the world. As categories, beings of nature accuse and charge us with familiarity (gnosis) itself.23 The way that nature performs this action, for Aristotle, is through what he calls form (eidos); as we will see, form betrays a kind of logos structure at the heart of what it is. Sometimes, as we will repeat often through this text, Aristotle even says that eidos and logos are the same.24 Yet, clearly, this claim will provide problems that will need to be addressed, not the least of which will be determining how best to articulate the di¡erence between the logos as form (that is, as the gathering-together [legein] into a continuous being with a certain de¢nitive look [eidos] and unique work [ergon]) from the logos as human speech and rationality. As I have already indicated, it will be the assertion of this manuscript that the former logos underwrites and subtends the latter but it will remain a primary task of the book to articulate the relation in a way that we might call the two-fold structure of logos.

2. The two-fold structure of logos In the introduction to his Aristotle's First Principles, Terence Irwin indicates one of the primary di¤culties in interpreting the archai of human intellectual awareness in Aristotle's logical and physical thought. On the one hand, Irwin suggests, Aristotle places a primary importance on the method of dialectic (the method which starts with common, already-circulating opinions about beings in the world) for coming to ¢rst principles.25 On the other hand, Irwin's Aristotle contends that, to come to a secure knowledge of an other being, our method must lead us to ``objective'' ¢rst principles, a view that commits Aristotle to a ``metaphysical realist conception of knowledge and reality.''26 The obvious problem emerges that somehow we must square ``dialectical method'' with ``objective'' ¢rst principles, two seemingly incompatible notions. How can the common opinion of the oi polloi lead to objective truth? I would argue that, while Aristotle's remarks are quite di¤cult on this issue and urgently require elucidation, the primary confusion here lies not in Aristotle's but in Irwin's formulation

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of the problem. I would contend, with Re¨mi Brague,27 that the awareness of Aristotle's ¢rst archai, the archai that secure the truth of our knowledge and contemplation of beings, is not objective and, consequently, Aristotle is not a metaphysical realist. To assert as much is to apply a modernist conception of physical beings in which there are separate objects viewable by subjects, an ontological paradigm that simply does not belong to Aristotle. For Aristotle, we are not Cartesian subjects that come to know indi¡erent objects in space; rather, as De Anima describes, we are subjected to the form (eidos) of the other being in such a way that our nous and/or sense organ actually becomes the other being in potency without its material. How can this phenomenon be considered objective? We will come to consider precisely what Aristotle means by the phenomenon of nous and aistheªsis in Chapter Two, however, here I want simply to distance my own reading from that of Irwin's. I share his goal to o¡er a convincing, a¤rmative articulation of how Aristotle can ``speak as though his claim about formal and ¢nal causes are true of the world, not just common beliefs about the world.''28 But I think that the appropriation of subject/object metaphysics to do so covers over a striking logos structure in Aristotle that may help us precisely to bridge the gap between ``dialectic'' and ``truth.'' One of the primary objectives of this book is to draw from Aristotle's texts a way of thinking about rational disclosure that breaks down the dualistic and oppositional paradigm of the knowing subject and its object, a necessary step in order to see the access to truth through the dialogical. One important rational relation that lends itself to this task is Aristotle's primary method of discovery: moving from an awareness of a being in accordance with our nature to an awareness of a being in accordance with its nature. I want to argue that the motion described in this procedure is that from a certain con¢guration of logos to another oneöa two-fold structure of logos. I will now o¡er a preliminary indication of this relation between these two as I read it in Aristotle; that is, I will suggest an interpretation of the relation between what I have called logos as ``form'' (or the gathering-into-continuity that shows itself in the display of any given being) and logos as ``human speech and rationality.'' As is evident, I do not think that Aristotle's use of the same term for both phenomena is accidental. Yet, at the same time, it is most important to understand at the outset that I am not suggesting that the equation of form and logos means that eidos is a form in the sense of a genus/universal or any sort of abstraction. I mean to retrieve what Heidegger29 has called the more encompassing and governing meaning of logos as ``gathering'' to understand how a natural being is a multiplicity organized into a continuous, complete whole. We will see during the course of this manuscript that, though related precisely through this more encompassing meaning as ``gathering,'' human speaking and rationality betray a very di¡erent structure than what we have above called ``form.'' The capacity for an individual human being to speak and to reason is bequeathed to that human by the very public/political surrounding logos-world that Aristotle calls the prouparchousa gnoªsis (the already-governing awareness).30 It seems to me that the literature surrounding dialectic and discovery has consistently

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failed to o¡er an interpretation of the prouparchousa gnoªsis, a structure without which there is no ground for dialectic at all. In fact, upon my reading, this already-subtending awareness is the key to perforating the strict boundaries that delimit the subject/object interpretations of Aristotelian discovery.31 The manuscript as a whole seeks to o¡er an account of this fundamental base upon which human awareness rests but, here, I want to o¡er a preliminary interpretation of it as it relates to the two-fold structure of logos. For Aristotle, humans are born into a cultural world already at-work; this cultural world appropriates them, shaping their habits and cultural norms in addition to bestowing speech upon them. The prouparchousa gnoªsis casts the world in a meaningful light and shapes the human encounter with beings that show up in it. Human speech and the discursive encounter with the world remain clearly distant from the logos-as-form structure that we were articulating above. On the one hand, the structure from which humans derive their language and cultural habits is the prouparchousa gnoªsis: a public, surrounding logosworld that paints beings in its own light for each individual human that inhabits it. I want to argue that when Aristotle says that we can be aware of something in accordance with our nature, he means being aware in the way of the prouparchousa gnoªsis. On the other hand, one might say that in a certain way this logosstructure stands in the way of the encounter of a being in which the disclosure of that being's primary logos or form occurs (being aware of something by that something's own nature). For the prouparchousa gnoªsis is a logos structure that lies in between the inquirer and the inquired like a lens. Yet, at the same time, we will see that it remains a necessary condition for the human being to a¡ect a comportment in which the human can become aware of a being by its own nature; that is to say, even though the structure of endoxa, the prouparchousa gnoªsis, stands in the way of the discovery of the primary logos/form of a being under inquiry, it remains nevertheless necessary for this discovery.32 For, as Aristotle argues at the beginning of the Posterior Analytics, all discovery happens by way of an already-subtending awareness (71 a 1). One might argue that past discoveriesöwork conducted by previous philosophers that have disclosed the primary eidos of certain beingsöhave been preserved as endoxa (common opinions) in a certain generic/universal form in the prouparchousa gnoªsis, preserving knowledge and awareness for those who have subsequently become appropriated by their surrounding logos-world. Such discoveries become drawn-up into discursivity and a kind of cultural repository. As such, they run the risk of becoming generalized abstractions. As we considered earlier, mathematics functions in very much the same way, for Aristotle. Before we said that Aristotle considers mathematical explanations of beings to rely upon the abstraction of lines and planes and magnitudes from bodies, abstractions which are then hypostatized and used universally. But for Aristotle, the discovery of the logos/ form of an individual being must be immediate and singular or, in Aristotle's words, simple (haplos). There must be a comportment derived somehow from the prouparchousa gnoªsis (from the human cultural resource) that enables individual humans to break free of their cultural, universalizing lens in order to grasp

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the nature of a being by that being's nature. This capacity to lay bare the prouparchousa gnoªsis in order to step out of it belongs to human nature, qua the being that lives in accordance with logos. As such, this two-fold structure of logos supersedes in its complexity the articulation of a knowing relation as between a subject and object.

3.

Logos and human nature

Yet, if suggesting a recon¢guration of the relation between reason/logic and nature in Aristotle remains an epiphenomenal concern emanating out of the deeper question of the logos^physis relation, then one will need to attend not only to the manifestation of logos as a physical phenomenon, but also to the problem of the nature of ethics. As Aristotle writes in the Nicomachean Ethics,33 the nature of the human being shows itself in and through logos. If we are to accept Aristotle's assertions about nature in the Physicsöthat nature is an archeª of motion34öthen we must say that the human being reveals its nature in the unique way in which it moves. How do humans move? Anthropoi move in their most exquisitely human way not by metabolizing, not by walking, nor by seeing and hearing, but human beings reveal their natural motion in and through their orthoi logoiöwhich is to say, through the cultivation of their ethical and intellectual virtues. Moreover, we shall see that human ethical virtues, the virtuous comportments into which humans move, are gathered and held together (sunechein) in the same way and by the same structure that provides dependable continuity (sunecheia) to all beings of nature: circular motion. In this way, I will show that ethics and politics in Aristotle must be read together with his physical treatises;35 for ethics and politics show themselves as the natural work (ergon) of the human being; which is to say, ethics and politics are the archai of continuity (sunecheia) for humans: they are the sources by which humans preserve and secure their being. It seems to me that these arguments surrounding the question of logos and physis are not only di¡erent ways of reading the Aristotelian texts and yielding, thereby, original conclusions, but also I think that these conclusions can contribute to contemporary debates surrounding the issue of rationality and our own understanding of what it means to be rational beings. I wish to retrieve from the texts of Aristotle a way to think of human reason as a unique potency for encountering nature (both beings of nature and our own nature, qua political animals). As I have already mentioned, Aristotle often describes two ways that humans can be aware of something: by human nature and by the other being's nature. Part of the goal of this manuscript is to articulate the di¡erence between these two modes and to argue that the distinction precisely indicates that, for Aristotle, human beings possess a unique power to unhinge themselves from themselves: from the structure of their own constitution (the prouparchousa gnoªsis) human beings possess the power to a¡ect a disposition in which they can encounter and discover an other being in its alterity. I want to argue that

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this potency might remain uniquely human, insofar as other animals always perceive the world in accordance with their own nature. Yet, the unique characteristics of logos enable a capacity for a certain self-di¡ering motion that enables the discovery and vision of the other as other. Logos, then, does not only betray a normative structure that speaks only in generic universals, but it also harbors within itself the potency to lay bare a being in such a way that the being can be intellectually perceived as the being it is. To apply the language of Levinas36 to Aristotle without fully appropriating the former's conclusions, logos does not merely reiterate the same (the generic articulation of a being) but, in addition to this, it contains the very potency to open humans to an awareness of an other being, as other,37 a two-fold way of comporting to natural beings that is perhaps unique to human nature. A further consequence of my reading of Aristotle will be a new conception of reason which is precisely public and political. Reason is not merely the thought procedure of mind in Aristotle; it does not lie on a metaphysical point between the eyes and ears but ¢nds its origin in the dialogical realm of the argument and discourse in the polis. As such, reason betrays a political origin that can never be reduced to the private thoughts of an individual. To speak of reason is, therefore, not to speak of ``philosophy of mind'' for Aristotle. But rather, it is to speak of politics and ethics (or certainly not without them)öfor logos remains wedded to the polis and its habits and expectations. With this new interpretation of reason, I also wish to disrupt the long-standing disagreement surrounding the ground upon which ethical and political decisions rest in Aristotle. While I agree with Richard Sorabji38 and Julia Annas,39 for example, that Aristotle secures his ethical and political decisions upon rational grounds rather than on subjective emotion or subjective pleasure, I do not think that we can call these rational grounds realist or objective. I share Annas' concern that, in contemporary philosophy, ``on the one hand we ¢nd rigid insistence on a single principle (or hierarchy of principles) and on the other an unimaginative and unargued intuitionism.''40 I agree that Aristotle's considered view betrays a more complex structure. But, for him, there are not objective ethical principles orbiting around the Earth against which we simply measure our behavior; yet good judgments do not rely on the relativistic emotional or intuitional grounds of a individual subject either. We require a new interpretation of reason to think Aristotle's rational grounds in ethics and politics. I disagree with Annas' conclusion that virtuous decision rests upon a rational ground to be found in the hypostatized reason of the good man. While certainly ``the good man is to say''41 what is good, the wise person does not decide in isolation from a political community. There is not a single rational deliberation a good person can undertake that is not always already bound up with a surrounding prouparchousa gnoªsis; for my capacity to deliberate is bequeathed to me by that surrounding logos world. Every syllogistic, epagogic, and rhetorical gesture is, as such, a kind of repetition, just as virtue itself is a kind of repetition. The virtuous man (or woman) is ¢rst and foremost a citizen; for Aristotle, there is no human, much less an exemplary human, outside of the polis and its logoi. As such, the wise

12

Aristotle and Rational Discovery

human is dialogically constituted as good. To be sure, this is not to say that virtuous and rational activity are subjective or relativistic. In addition to my remarks above regarding the structure of reason in the discovery of nature and its beings, I want to suggest that the quite political nature of reason betrays a knowing relation that remains neither objective/realist nor subjective/emotivist. Humans achieve the vision of the truth in a more complicated manner; indeed, to understand the discovery of truth in Aristotle, we must expand our conception of the vision of truth. As we can anticipate from these remarks, the structure of the rational motion toward truth Aristotle suggests is moving from an awareness by human nature to an awareness by the other nature. As such, it is not limited to scienti¢c analysis. Truth, for him, is disclosed within virtuous comportmentsöI hold (in a hexis) myself toward another being in di¡erent virtues, each of which discloses a certain kind of truth. Episteªmeª reveals a being in a di¡erent way than techneª or phroneªsis and we miss something important about truth when we forget this. For, while one can be aware of what something is (ti estiöepisteªmeª ) in accordance with our nature or in accordance with that something's nature, one also holds ethical and aesthetic awareness in the same two-fold way. For, what is a poem or a painting? Is it not a way to become more self-re£ective about one's awareness of a given being serving as the subject of the work of art than our generic understanding represented by the prouparchousa gnoªsis would otherwise allow? Regarding ethical/political disclosure, one can be aware of what action a given situation requires in the way of the prouparchousa gnoªsis (because a particular action is expected of everyone, for instance, or an action is lawful), or one can be aware of what action to undertake because one has undergone the self-di¡ering rational work that leads one to choice ( proairesis) and taking a stand. Yet, none of these conclusions can be said to rest on subjective grounds, because they emerge from a dependable and consistent rationality that is political and precisely not merely emotional or psychological. Yet they are not objective either, since they are political and ¢nd their origin in dialogical agreement. Thus, my manuscript will seek to interpret the function of logos in Aristotle insofar as it harbors the potency for human beings to become a foreigner to themselves in order to undergo the vision of the other. Consequently, I propose to undertake a work exploring the logos/physis connection through a mostly exegetical approach to certain of Aristotle's logical, physical, and ethical works.

4.

The domains of logos: Logic, nature, and ethics

The thesis will accordingly be compelled along its trajectory by the necessity to elucidate three di¡erent articulations of the nature of logos. What we want to do is o¡er an account of the nature of human logos, qua the nature of the human. Yet, almost immediately we ¢nd ourselves in the predicament of being situated within at least a two-fold remove from this our de¢ning task. In attempting to o¡er an account of the nature of logos, we must ¢rst decide how best to phrase

Introduction: Between Reason and Nature

13

what nature is (its ti esti ); we must o¡er a few words on the nature of nature. Fortunately, Aristotle has given us quite a few questions and considerations to help us elucidate a possible interpretation of the nature of natureöand our work on this matter will obviously center on the Physics. Yet, at the very beginning of this text, we will see that even before we can work through an interpretation of the nature of nature, we must ¢rst contend with the di¤culty of deciding where to begin. For what method should be employed to approach nature by its own nature? If, as I have suggested above, there is a structure of logos (the prouparchousa gnoªsis) that shapes and limits both our and Aristotle's understanding, then what method do we employ in order to achieve a comportment by which we can be aware of the archeª of nature? For the prouparchousa gnoªsis shapes and conditions our encounter with nature in advance, an awareness of nature by human nature, not by nature; indeed, the already-governing awareness serves as the condition for humans to grasp and intuit continuous, uni¢ed beings. In order to a¡ect a comportment by which we can be aware of the principle of nature or any other being, we must disclose this governing structure; and, on my reading, Aristotle believes that it is through epagoªgeª that we are able to disclose the prouparchousa gnoªsis. Thus, the book will (1) begin by elaborating the method by which we are able to perceive something de¢nitive about nature. Once we have achieved this, we can (2) proceed to consider what nature is as a principle, or the ti esti of nature. Subsequently, we shall be prepared to (3) provide a more explicit treatment of the nature of logos. Epagoªgeª, Aristotle's logical method by which humans discover, is the way that we can a¡ect a comportment toward this curious structureöthe prouparchousa gnoªsisöthat subtends our encounter with the world so as to lay that structure bare and render it, in a way, visible. Much of this work of Chapter Oneö On Discovering Nature through Epagoªgeªöof this book will seek to bring the prouparchousa gnoªsis to light via an interpretation of epagoªgeª. We begin by considering the ¢rst page of the Physics, for it is there that we are brought face to face with the methodological problem of thinking the nature of nature. For, in the ¢rst page of the Physics, Aristotle proposes epagoªgeª as the most appropriate speech-comportment to discover and perceive the archai of nature. Attempting to disclose nature will prove to be a most di¤cult task: nature is everywhere and everything; there is even a nature to our method of disclosing her. What can we initially say about nature if there is nothing that di¡erentiates her from anything else? The reader can already no doubt perceive the striking self-referential di¤culty that lies ahead in this task. We must select a method carefully. In recent years, the debates surrounding Aristotle's method of discovery have centered on this ambiguous inaugural passage of the Physics. If Aristotle's method of science is that articulated in the Posterior Analytics (demonstration), then why does he begin the Physics, an investigation we would otherwise consider to be the science most requiring empirical observation, with an analysis of nature's conceptual history? One side of this debate (represented by G. E. L. Owen)42 has been taken to argue that the foundation of Aristotle's physical science is arguing from a priori conceptual structures that are underwritten by

14

Aristotle and Rational Discovery

the eudoxa (good opinions) of the wise. In opposition to G. E. L. Owen, an empirical reading of Aristotle's physical method has arisen in ¢gures like Robert Bolton.43 I will brie£y develop these two readings in Chapter One of this manuscript in order to argue that Aristotle's method cannot be contained by either the term ``a priori'' or its opposite, ``empirical.'' Moreover, both of these appellations conceal the nature of logical investigation in Aristotle.44 Consequently, we will draw an interpretation of epagoªgeª from a reading of the Analytica. Indeed, Aristotle, we shall see, will often say that it is through the procedure of a kind of dialogical epagoªgeª 45 that we are able to see (empirically or otherwise) any natural being at allöand this stands even more true for coming to terms with nature by her own nature. For the aforementioned logos-structure (the prouparchousa gnoªsis)öwhich resembles what we might call (in scare quotes) a ``conceptual horizon''ösimultaneously limits and secures human access to the nature of any natural being. Aristotle speaks of this structure in numerous places in the Posterior Analytics as the condition for coming to know beings of natureöby both our nature and by their nature.46 I roughly elucidate its meaning here as: a structure of awareness that subtends and governs our awareness of all beings in advance of our more immediate awareness of them. This structure of awareness subtends and shapes our awareness of beings in advance, providing us with the ability to see them at all. As we shall textually show, it is precisely through the universal47 provided by the prouparchousa gnoªsis that we are able to receive the form of the being in sensuous (aisthesis) or intellectual (nous) perception. Yet I must emphatically insist that the nature of this structure is not consciousness: insofar as we understand by that term something interior or private; in fact, it is both historical and politically public, insofar as it is a logos or a kind of speech. Further, we shall see in Chapter One that we can e¡ect a self-re£ective relationship to this structure in order to see beings by their nature. So, in order even to begin to think nature in Aristotle (which will subsequently allow us to think how logos is a nature) we have ¢rst to think through the method by which Aristotle thinks nature at all. Chapter Two (Speaking of Motion) will follow the interpretation of epagoªgeª with an elucidation of nature as a principle or archeª. Speci¢cally, we want to think through how the nature of nature shows itselföthat is to say, we will answer the question: what are we speaking about when we speak about ``nature?'' Aristotle will help us to answer this question by pointing toward the debates surrounding whether motion admits of being. Famously, Aristotle determines that usually when we speak of nature, we speak of something which is an archeª of motion. In fact, among the ¢rst philosophers that Aristotle confronts is Parmenides, whose poem ``On Nature'' relates that motion does not admit of being. While Aristotle must confront this way of thinking about nature and motion, I argue that, actually, Aristotle appropriates something most fundamental from Parmenides that will determine the entire thrust of his assertions not only about nature, but also about essentially every other facet of his philosophy: continuous unity. The logical backbone of continuous unity, I shall argue, is Aristotle's principle of non-contradiction. In order to secure

Introduction: Between Reason and Nature

15

the unity and continuity of a being and in order to be able to depend upon the being of any given being, it is of utmost importance that one be not able to speak of something as both being and not being at the same time and in the same respect. From these remarks on Aristotle's appropriation of Parmenides, we shall glean that, in order for Aristotle to counter the Parmenidean claim that motion does not admit of being, Aristotle will need to show that motion is uni¢ed and continuousöhe will need to show that motion is dependable and consistent, that it adheres to a certain temporality and spatiality, that it unfolds within a set of predictable limits. Of course, Aristotle spends the entirety of the Physics showing that motion can meet all of these requirements, and therefore we can be assured of the being of motion. Yet, these assertions are not without speci¢c problems which we shall meet along the way. For instance, if motion is a being, to which category does it belong? After all, we said that categories are the beings that are, for Aristotle. How does motion show itself categorically? Moreover, if motion is to admit of being, in what way shall we say it is complete; for Aristotle clearly states that that which is one and continuous must be complete. We will have to think the completeness of motion with paradoxical words. Further, if, as Aristotle says, every being in motion must be pushed into that motion by some other being, can we speak of self-motion at all? Aristotle, we shall see, will have quite provocative and exciting things to say about all these questions, things I will hold together with the Aristotelian notion of continuity. We will see that the continuity provided by circular motion secures and preserves the being of all beings. Moreover, we will have to re£ect on the ontological status of circular motion as a preserving force of the kosmos: the force which, in its highest manifestation, preserves and assures the being of the kosmos all the way down to the motion that governs the blooming of the rose. In light of our assertion that motion, circular motion, underlies the being of any being, we will be forced to pose this question: is the formal structure which preserves the kosmos metaphysical? Such an assertion, we shall see, will have to ¢nd a way to incorporate the fact of the unmistakable sensible visibility of circular motion, observable in the night sky. Finally, these considerations of continuity as the preserving force of the being of beings (even motion) in Chapter Two will end with a transition to the topic proper. If a nature is most primarily an archeª of motion, then we can argue that human beings achieve their most characteristic motion through logos. The ¢nal two sections of Chapter Two draw upon the conclusions of the foregoing chapters in order to o¡er a phenomenological account of the relation of logos and physis in Aristotle in the activity of natural discovery. In the third section, I primarily o¡er an interpretation of nous as it is presented in De Anima and Metaphysics lambda; for nous is a crucial feature to human discovery and yet it is a most perplexing phenomenon. The conclusions drawn from my understanding of nous-at-work again align Aristotle with Parmenides; for I will show that, even for Aristotle, there is a way in which thinking (qua nous) and being are the same. Our reading of nous will enable us to think more carefully about the relation between logos and nous. Commentators often speak of rational activity and employ both

16

Aristotle and Rational Discovery

terms without a systematic distinction. Aristotle himself is rather confusing on the matter, since he does argue that nous is without logos. Yet, if human nature is never without logos, qua its primary di¤nitive nature, then how can human noetic perception be radically free of the activity of logos? In the fourth section of Chapter Two, I attempt to solve this di¤culty by thinking through de¢nition (a logos). For, on the one hand, de¢nition is a logos which possesses a noetic perception of the to ti en einai, the nature of a being; and on the other hand, de¢nition is a logos-comportment that enables humans to break out of the prouparchousa gnoªsis in order to gain access to the nature of a being through noetic perception. Everything rational that we have to say about a being will need to attend to the de¢nition; for de¢nitions are of the archai and, as such, they rule over all demonstrations that carry any weight. Curiously, as we will see, de¢nitions are not proved or logically displayed in the way that we usually think when we use those words. Rather, a de¢nition is ``revealed,'' and it is through securing these revelations as ground that all demonstrations take place. I will argue that, in the consideration of a being, after one has disclosed the prouparchousa gnoªsis by recalling what wise people have had to say about that being, one is able to a¡ect a comportment toward the being such that the to ti en einai is revealed or shines forth. This is a de¢nition. A de¢nition displays the eidos (the form or the look) belonging to a being, and secures access to the nature of a being by its nature. In this way, we see that a human is able to break out of perceiving a being by human nature (logos as the prouparchousa gnoªsis) with their nature (logos as rationality) in order to then be ``open'' to receive the nature of the considered being by its own nature (logos as a de¢nition). Once we have articulated one of the more fundamental motions subtended by the nature of the human being, we can begin to understand more clearly the role of potency in Aristotle's kosmos. As we have just seen, in Chapter Two we will investigate the way that motion admits of being, focusing on the relationship of motion to energeia, to circular motion. However, beings of motion equally possess a nature of potency. In Aristotle's work uncovering the de¢nition of motion, he speci¢cally posits beings which are in the dual way of dunamis/ energeia as those which do admit of motion of the rectilinear variety. But what do we mean by something being in the way of potency? Answering this question will prove decisive not only for articulating the logos/physis relation, but also for understanding Aristotle's kosmos in general; for it might be that dunamis remains Aristotle's primary contribution to physical investigation. Certainly Aristotle himself considers it so. As we will observe in Chapter Three of the book, Aristotle argues in book one48 of his Physics that previous thinkers fail in their investigations precisely because they neglect to think dunamis. For them, dunamis does not admit of being, but, at best, merely promises being. In the Physics, Aristotle suggests that his intellectual heritage could have resolved many of their aporia if they had considered beings in potency as admitting of being. Failing to sense the being of potency prevents one from developing the conceptual resources to think the being of motion and, since nature is an archeª of motion, the being of physis. Seeing dunamis as a genuine mode (and later called

Introduction: Between Reason and Nature

17

an archeª ) of being enables Aristotle to overcome the aporia occasioned by earlier re£ections on generation. Yet, how can something which is in potency be said to be? Starting with this question, Chapter Three o¡ers a double interpretation of potency: on the one hand, potency in nature and, on the other hand, potency as human beings relate to it via human nature (logos). First, we need to understand more clearly what it means for Aristotle for something to be in potency; for it strikes me as a very curious way that something can be said to admit of being. It is a mode of being which sounds very foreign and strange to our modern ears, since it precisely means that something not present as itself, nevertheless admits of being in a certain wayöthere is something there which is not yet tangibly there. For instance, in winter it belongs to the tree in potency to be fully atwork blossoming. The tree possess this potency, despite the fact that it remains barren and caked with snow. More than simply possessing a potency, Aristotle argues that the tree is blossoming in potencyöpotency belongs to these beings as a mode of being. We shall argue that, rather than points upon a line, beings, for Aristotle, resemble a kind of ordered constellationöa structured, naturally logical array of potencies and works that bloom forth into disclosure (energeia) and recede back into latency (dunamis). Thus, this ¢rst part of Chapter Three investigates the order of potency inhering within all physei-beings that are in the way of dunamis/energeia. In light of our articulation of form and to ti en einai in Chapter Two, here we will further elucidate the logos of physei-beings through the rubric of dunamis; that is, we will articulate the structure of physei-beings as a gathered, dynamic array. Yet humans, in accordance with their nature as logos-having beings, have a unique relationship to potency in natural beings. Thus, part two of Chapter Three will argue that human logos a¡ords a unique perception of a being's potencies. Human logos gathers a being's potency array before the perceiving human so that the human being may grasp something not necessarily at-work (energeia) in that being, but rather in potency (dunamis). Moreover, the beings and their potencies are brought forth into display in the light of human virtue. For example, I argue that when a house-builder with the virtue of housebuilding opens her eyes when she is standing before a forest, she does not merely see ``forest,'' but sees ``a house in potency,'' insofar as she sees the ``wood'' which, in the light of her techneª, is gathered (legein) before her as ``available for building.'' In this way, human nature (both logos and areteª ) enables humans to perceive and grasp potencies inherent in these beings of nature. Once we have o¡ered a reading of the relation of virtue and logos to the potency-array of natural beings, we can transition to a consideration of the most primary motion of human nature: ethics. In Chapter Four, our prior preoccupations with o¡ering a logos of nature now lead us toward a consideration of the nature of logos; that is to say, in this chapter we re£ect on human nature (which is the nature of the being that has logos). If, as Aristotle argues, nature is a ruling origin of motion, then human nature would be an archeª of motion involving logos. This chapter articulates human nature in two ways, each of which is separated into two sections. On the one hand, there is the

18

Aristotle and Rational Discovery

motion of logos acquisition. In Aristotle's account, human beings are born into an already-subtending and -governing structure of awarenessöa logos structure that inscribes itself upon human beings and bequeaths to them an identity as well as a language and a series of habits and beliefs. Part one of Chapter Four o¡ers an account of this appropriation. Yet, being appropriated by the prouparchousa gnoªsis is not the most exquisite expression of human nature. Moreover, it is also not the primary motion of the human being. Rather, if the conditions are correct, thinks Aristotle, the human being has the power to dispose (hexis) herself toward the prouparchousa gnoªsis in a questioning and critical way. In such a moment, the human being engages an individual power of logos (reason) which enables her to distinguish herself from the surrounding logoi. Moreover, this moment of de-cisiveness, of cutting oneself away from the general body of logos in order to wakefully take responsibility for one's beliefs and actions, is, I argue, the most exquisite human motion. In fact, I will argue that virtue, for Aristotle, betrays the most primary human motion and is, therefore, human nature; it is the motion by which human beings preserve and secure their very being, and, as such, it betrays an unmistakable resemblance to that most primordial motion from which all motions receive their source: the circular motion of the spheres. I spend the majority of section two of Chapter Four drawing the connections between virtuous disposition and circular motion in Aristotle with the expectation to show, perhaps provocatively, that virtue is nature for Aristotle, human nature. Finally, I close the manuscript with a consideration of what conclusions we might take from Aristotle's thoughts on the relation between reason and ethics, on the one hand, and reason and nature, on the other. After all, the very debates that continue to animate Aristotle scholarship to this day also £ourish within debates about ethics in general. For example, are the foundations upon which our ethical commitments are grounded rationally secured in such a way that they can be applied universally? Do they rest upon objective grounds as the Moral Realists would have it? Or rather are they purely subjective determinations, relative to those in power and their interests, such that competing arguments have no recourse to validation other than a kind of sophistical foundation of rhetorical adroitness? It seems to me that my reading of Aristotle contributes originally to all of these questions by answering them with: both neither and all. Aristotle, rather, provides us with a way of thinking rational disclosure in deep intimacy with nature and therefore can perhaps enable us to unhinge ourselves from the procrustean bed approach of de-ciding49 a¤rmatively for either reason or nature.

Chapter One

On Discovering Nature through Epagoªgeª 1 `` `And we'll say,' he said, `that what the Muses answer is right.' `Necessarily,' I said, `for they are Muses.' `What,' he said, `do the Muses say next?' ''2 At the beginning of his Physics, Aristotle prefaces his inquiry into nature with a very brief re£ection on the unique di¤culties of investigating the archeª/archai of physis and the method by which one might overcome these di¤culties. Selecting an appropriate method is important; for disclosing the archeª of physis will show not only that nature is (a central task of the Physics), but also what it is (ti esti )ö the primary work that nature performs, the work that animates everything that is natural or everything that has a natureöthat is to say, to discover the archeª of physis will be to reveal that most primary activity which belongs to almost everything. The method, thus, must be capable of disclosing nature's to ti en einai: what nature keeps on being in order to be nature.3 It seems to me that the broader topic of methodöand speci¢cally, what sort of method we are to undertake in order to discover archaiöremains a most appropriate discussion at the beginning of the Physics; for, when we speak of discovering the archeª of nature, in Aristotle, we speak of discovery in its most primordial sense. Consequently, the discussion surrounding the method by which we are to discover nature might be the most paradigmatic inquiry in which to make clear the method of discovery in Aristotle. Yet, there remains much debate among the commentators surrounding Aristotle's method of discovery as articulated in his introductory remarks in the Physics. According to G. E. L. Owen, the dominant interpretation of Aristotle's method of discovery until the last century was one grounded upon empirical observation. ``Conventionally,'' writes Owen, ``Aristotle has been contrasted with Plato as the committed empiricist, anxious to `save the phenomena' by basing his theories on observation of the physical world. First the phenomena, then the theory to explain them: this Baconian formula he recommends not only for physics . . . but also for ethics and generally for all arts and sciences'' (155). Owen criticizes this approach by suggesting that ``convention'' has neglected to think carefully about the meaning of Aristotle's phenomena. Pointing toward Aristotle's clear reliance upon remarks of earlier philosophers to set the stage for his own arguments, Owen asserts that Aristotle's method of discovery is conceptual: ``the phenomena he wants to saveöor to give logical reasons (not empirical evidence) for scrappingöare the common convictions . . . of his

20

Aristotle and Rational Discovery

contemporaries'' (155).4 In contrast to Owen's very in£uential reading, there has more recently emerged a renewed inclination toward reading Aristotle's method of discovery in the Physics as one grounded upon empirical observation.5 Why is there such disagreement? While it is true that Aristotle is not very generous in his inquiry into method at Physics Oneöthe argument traverses but a few sentences and contains ambiguous, even contradictory vocabularyöI want to argue that at least part of the primary confusion (and consequent disagreement) represented in the literature lies in the interpreter's insistence of applying these foreign, oppositional categories (those of the empirical/conceptual) to the physical world of Aristotle. In this chapter, my primary argument will be that Aristotle's method of discovery betrays a structure that cannot be described as either empirical or conceptual; indeed we must unhinge ourselves from these oppositional categories if we are to think what I believe is the very exciting, if curious, structure of revealing what something is (ti esti or to ti en einai) in Aristotle's worldöwhether physical, metaphysical or ethical.6 By o¡ering a careful reading of Physics One, in part one I will show that the conditions of any inquiry into the archeª of physis always demand that the inquirer inhabits a certain hermeneutic circularity that exceeds both empirical and conceptual description and, further, I will show that epagoªgeª remains the methodological comportment demanded by, and most appropriate to, this circularity. In part two, we follow these initial remarks with a more concrete analysis of epagoªgeª from the Analytica. Our primary task in part two is to show the complex interrelatedness of aisthesis (sensuous perception) and the prouparchousa gnoªsis (what Owen might call the ``conceptual economy of endoxa''). These observations will further secure our claim that Aristotle's method of discovery exceeds the conventional interpretation by its complexity. Finally, in part three, we consider the meaning of prouparchousa gnoªsis more carefully through a consideration of the role of gnoªsis in Aristotle and, thereby, we come to understand how epagoªgeª leads us from an awareness of something by our nature to an awareness of something by its nature. Here, we will see the reason that Aristotle interrogates his hermeneutic horizon (the prouparchousa gnoªsis) in order to a¡ect a comportment by which he will be able to disclose ``what something is,'' even if that something is nature itself.

1.

On the epagoªgeª of nature

In book alpha of the Physics, Aristotle begins his inquiry into nature with a re£ection about what remains most important in physical inquiry if one expects to claim knowledge (episteªmeª ) of nature or to have achieved some kind of intellectual disclosure (eidenai) about it. Among the necessary ends for the investigation, Aristotle argues, will be acquiring a certain familiarity (gnorizein) with the archai (ruling origins or principles)7 of nature: ``for we regard ourselves as knowing (gnorisomen) each thing whenever we are acquainted with its ¢rst causes and ¢rst beginnings (archai) . . . it is clear that also for the knowledge (episteªmeªs) of nature one must ¢rst try to mark out what pertains to its sources (archai)''

On Discovering Nature through Epagoªgeª

21

(184 a 15).8 If we want to a¡ect a comportment toward a being that shows itself as episteªmeª or eidenai,9 then we will need to unveilöand, thus, familiarize ourselves withöthe ruling origin(s) of the being undergoing the inquiry. Familiarity (gnoªsis) with the archai of a thing remains central for achieving the ethical shape of ``knowledge,'' for Aristotle.10 But how does one achieve this familiarity? What is the method for acquaintance and discovery?11 In the following lines, Aristotle points us towards an answer: ``the natural ( pephuke) road,'' he writes, ``is from what is more familiar and clearer to us to what is clearer and better known by nature'' (184a 17). Most immediately, we take from Aristotle's words that the natural motion toward familiarity with archai lies on the road originating in what is clear and familiar by our nature. However, the natural motion on this road leads us to an acquaintance with the nature of the being in question; that is to say, when inquiry takes its natural path, we ultimately aim to free ourselves from the casual awareness of a being that we already possess by our nature in order to become familiar with the being by its own nature. Of course, such a mode of inquiry is not surprising in Aristotle. In fact, he famously repeats this formulation throughout his treatises on a variety of subjects and inquiries. However, in the context of this current treatiseöa work about nature and its principlesöthe careful reader intuits the inherent di¤culty (one might even say strange paradox) that confronts any inquiry into nature. For the being undergoing this kind of analysis is precisely nature. That is, the procedure of inquiry will take the following perplexing structure and course: the natural path in the inquiry on nature will be to move from an acquaintance of nature by our nature to a familiarity with nature by its own nature. In formulating the description of the activity in this way, Aristotle reveals to us what is at stake in any account (or logos) of nature. After attentive re£ection, nature shows itself as perhaps the most primordial beingöthoroughly animating all of our physical and intellectual resourcesöso that nature might be the hermeneutic horizon most urgently requiring elucidation. It may very well be that there could be no deeper expression than an account of nature by its nature. Indeed, perhaps there is no deeper expression of even our selves than an account of nature. Nature lies most near to us: it emerges through us and in spite of us; physis governs our relationship to ourselves and to others; it even mediates our inquiry into physis, insofar as the inquiry naturally tends toward familiarity with things in accordance with their nature. In fact, if epagoªgeª is the way that human beings discover archai, then it becomes clear why, as we foreshadowed before, the inquiry into physis would be the paradigmatic example of human discovery, since inquiring into nature is in a certain sense inquiring into something that belongs to everything.12 But perhaps because physis remains a being which lies closest to us, it nevertheless keeps itself at the greatest distance. After all, can we ever really distinguish ourselves from nature in order to interrogate it from a distance? Any attempt to do so would be inherently misleading and deceptive.13 As Aristotle makes clear: since we desire to become familiar with the ruling origin of nature, we cannot break out of nature in order to become familiar with its principles. The desire that we possess to see physis by its

22

Aristotle and Rational Discovery

nature,14 the method by which we achieve such knowledge, and the rational faculty by which we accompany nature's natural disclosure: these all belong to nature insofar as they have a nature, and therefore belong to the inquiry. Such are the di¤culties to which Aristotle alludes in the ¢rst sentences of the Physics, di¤culties which, I might add, deepen and complicate the matter of a method for the knowledge of nature represented in the modern literature in Descartes' methodological comportment and those that follow him. After all, in light of the preceding di¤culties, can we speak of humans mastering nature at all? Yet Aristotle remains optimistic about his odds of surmounting the di¤culty and encouraging nature to disclose itself. In fact, he continues to qualify his methodological suggestion by describing the mode in a way that resembles what we know in traditional Aristotelian terminology as induction. Epagoªgeª is, of course, Aristotle's word for what we call induction and, while he does not employ the term here at the beginning of the Physics, we can glean from his description what methodological comportment he has in mind: ``it is necessary to proceed from a general view of something15 to what is particular, for it is the whole that is better known by [sensuous] perception (aisthesis)'' (184 a 35). We begin by induction because, as we know from the Posterior Analytics, induction begins with vague sensuous perceptions (aisthesis) of beings and then makes its way toward the universal (katholou) (72 a 3),16 the articulation of what something is. Induction, with its trust in sense perception (aisthesis), remains Aristotle's only method for becoming acquainted with the sources (archai) of the beings under inquiry, and this is, after all, precisely what Aristotle told us would be necessary if we want to a¡ect the virtuous comportment of knowledge in which nature might disclose itself to us. But there are two interrelated problems with what unfolds from this starting point that I think will give us the occasion to reconsider what is called Aristotle's method of induction: aisthesis and what we earlier introduced as the prouparchousa gnoªsis. If induction begins in sense perception, as Aristotle himself says in both texts that I have quoted and as so much of the secondary literature17 argues, we must ask why it is that Aristotle begins his inquiry into natureöthe most exemplary being of inquiry, the being that subtends the nature of all other beingsöby talking about what other people have said about nature. After all, Aristotle immediately follows his preliminary remarks on method with an account of physis in Parmenides, Melissus, and the physikoi. Thus, we should ask: what is the role of aisthesis in epagoªgeª such that Aristotle could conceive of himself as employing it in such an explicit hermeneutic/logos-oriented endeavor? Does this not call into question the often repeated claim that Aristotle employs an ``empirical'' procedure?18 After making these methodological suggestions, Aristotle does not direct us to the forest in order to cut down a tree for the sake of laboratory analysis. Rather, he recalls what purportedly wise people have had to say about nature. In light of this commitment to received speech (logos) as part of the method, it remains urgent for us to £esh out the role of sensuous perception in epagoªgeª. More speci¢cally, we must better understand how it is that aisthesis functions in relation to forms conceived as universals. What does aisthesis mean

On Discovering Nature through Epagoªgeª

23

if something comes to be ``sensed'' or something is rendered ``sensible'' by invoking the universals/forms provided by the prouparchousa gnoªsis, by the logoi in the surrounding world? Moreover, to understand Aristotle's ``leading forth'' toward the ¢rst principles of nature, we must more deeply consider what is at stake in the relation between scienti¢c inquiry and the prouparchousa gnoªsis. The very fact that Aristotle begins by recalling the ``preexistent knowledge,'' the speeches about nature handed down to him, as part of an inquiry into nature would itself appear to demand re£ection and elucidation. What is the status of nature such that it would require this sort of inquiry? Why would Aristotle begin his inquiry into natureöa being that pervades everything around himöby ``abstracting'' into his ``conceptual'' resources,19 by invoking the rational re£ections (logoi) of others in the surrounding logos-world? What is it about the being of nature that precludes the ability to simply open your eyes and look at nature and its beings? Why this turn ``inward'' toward spoken memories? Perhaps we already assume too much in the foregoing question; the modern Weltanschauung colors the view that our ``conceptual'' resources and motivations must lie somewhere ``within.'' In the proceeding discussion, I will show that nature is a being the inquiry into which has the peculiar status that requires recourse to this curious structure of ``prouparchousa gnoªsis.'' Moreover, I expect that our considerations of this phenomenon will reveal why epagoªgeª is required in inquiries of nature and beings like it. Indeed, we shall see that fundamental inquiries into the being of any being require epagoªgeª, insofar as ``induction'' remains the method by which humans look for archai. However, given its curious status, physis provides the example par excellence. The consideration of epagoªgeª as that comportment Aristotle a¡ects in his inquiry into nature will enable us to see three points which will remain decisive for the work as a whole: (1) any inquiry into the natural world begins through a self-re£exivity towards one's point of departure and selfre£exivity means precisely opening one's eyes toward the structure of logos that has formed one. Logos, I shall argue, is required to sense/perceive nature. (2) However, by logos, I do not mean some hypostatized rationality by which we apprehend physis. Rather, I will show that Aristotelian rationality is ¢rst one which envelops us; it is a surrounding logos (that Aristotle calls the prouparchousa gnoªsis) which shapes and forms our encounter with the world. (3) Yet, even though this rationality shapes our encounter with nature, I argue that it is not over and against nature either. The rational encounter with physis does not betray an appropriation of nature through the grid of consciousness, plotted out in advance by a priori categories of consciousness. Rather, as we will see, logos in Aristotle must be thought as a nature.

2.

The motion of epagoªgeª: Discovering the other through the same

Let us begin to consider the nature of epagoªgeª more clearly by recounting how Aristotle describes it. At the beginning of the Posterior Analytics, for instance,

24

Aristotle and Rational Discovery

Aristotle opens the text by asserting that ``all thinkerly (dianoeªtikeª ) teaching and learning come to be from an already-subtending and -governing (prouparchouses)20 acquaintance/awareness (gnoªseoªs)'' (71 a). Thus, as Aristotle so often begins his treatises, the Posterior Analytics proceeds by thinking most generally about a given topic; and the current discussion is occasioned by the technical problems of demonstrative knowledge.21 Indeed, this condition for the possibility of knowledge (a subtending fore-awareness) underwrites not only the mathematical sciences and all the other technai, but also all speeches (logoi) rely upon this prior familiarity, both those speeches that happen through syllogism and those through epagoªgeª (71 a 5). Literally, the manuscript does not in fact read ``all speeches,'' but I would argue that the further quali¢cation that follows shows that Aristotle means precisely all logoi and not simply logical speech, as if there were a distinction here between ``everyday'' speech and ``scienti¢c'' speech. Rather, even the speech of rhetoric (the speech that does not attempt to arrive at its natural good, but rather seeks only to persuade by force and self-interest) ¢nds itself guided in advance by a prior familiarity, a foreacquaintance (71 a 7). If we can speak of the various modes of logos in the language of comportment, then all the ways that logos can be disposed toward the world, all of its possible shapes (syllogism, epagoªgeª, rhetoric) receive their potency to bloom out into the open, to be disclosed and revealed as they are, from the soil of fore-familiarity. Such being the case, even demonstration does not come to be from nothing, to return to the language of the Physics; one does not perform syllogistically by abstracting and retreating into a rational void in order to make scienti¢c demonstrations;22 but, quite to the contrary, in order to perform most fully at syllogism, one needs to attend carefully to a familiarity always already at work, a kind of principle or wellspring of familiarity upon which one's syllogism will of necessity be grounded. Leaving aside for the moment the textually ambivalent meaning of this ``already-subtending and -governing familiarity'' (although how we decide to read this phrase will prove decisive for our ultimate conclusions regarding what is called Aristotle's induction), we can already make certain determinations about epagoªgeª. On the one hand, it shows itself as one of the possible comportments in which speech can hold itself (hexis) or, in other words, epagoªgeª is speech disposed toward the world in a certain shape; more precisely, humans (the only bearers of logos in Aristotle's physis) make things about physis manifest through holding themselves and their speech in a certain way. Here, at the beginning of the Posterior Analytics, Aristotle renders this making manifest of logos as ``all thinkerly teaching and learning'' and epagoªgeª remains one or both of these modes of disclosure. While I would not want to argue that Aristotle's induction belongs exclusively to the mode of matheªsis, upon re£ection it nevertheless seems that there are certain correlations between a broadly conceived matheªsis and a human epagoªgeª. If matheªsis (discovery/learning) can be said to be a sort of experience in which the world becomes uncovered in its meaninghorizon beginning with aisthesis dia paradeigmaton, then such activity resembles epagoªgeª most of all. Human beings open their eyes in the morning and see

On Discovering Nature through Epagoªgeª

25

(or hear) an ``alarm clock,'' the awareness of which enables them to place themselves in their ``own bed,'' since these beings ``belong'' in the same ``room''ö that is to say, insofar as humans relate to their world through such activities, human beings perform a sort of super¢cial epagoªgeª all the time. Meaningful beings show up before us in these moments and place us and the intuited beings within a meaningful horizon which discloses ``the world'' to us. We ¢nd ourselves pre-positioned in relation to other beings: we are in the bed, which is next to the alarm clock, in the room, in the house, in the city. It is in light of this everyday disclosive character of epagoªgeª that we understand Aristotle's critique (at the end of Prior Analytics) of the argument suggested in Plato's Meno that ``learning is recollection'': ``For to fore-know [ proepistasthai] something according to the particulars never happens, but again by epagoªgeª one receives/takes (lambanein) knowledge of things according to particulars, as though by becoming familiar again (anagnorizontas)'' (67 a 20 ¡.).23 When one encounters a particular being, when does one encounter it isolated on its own, without any contextual frame? The possibility of matheªsis or perhaps even apprehension, so suggests Aristotle, lies not strictly in the appropriation of an isolated being but, rather, discovery/learning (a topic of the Meno) requires at once (1) a fore-familiarity that provides the universal (a universal that makes the individual intuitable at all) and (2) a wakeful, perceptual grasp or an intellectual taking of the individual through the light provided by this universal. Not only would the individual remain utterly unencounterable as the kind of being that it is, but, without the universal provided by fore-familiarity and epagoªgeª, even the being's status as ``one being,'' as ``this'' being ``here,'' would thus remain unintuitable. As such, the logoi brought forth in the manner/disposition of epagoªgeª bathe the world in a certain light, making the world intuitable. For, as Aristotle writes, ``by the universal we see the particular'' (67 a 27).24 Within the context of a conversation surrounding the Meno, this passage adds further layers upon Aristotle's disagreement25 with those that would argue that learning is impossible. The presumed problem that ``we can not learn what we already know'' and ``we can not come to know something that we do not yet know at all'' becomes resolved by Aristotle in the aforementioned way. In discovering, the universal provided by the prouparchousa gnoªsisöwhich already governs and subtends our capacity to grasp the particularömakes the being visible and lends an intellectual graspability to the being in such a way that makes it perceivable as a particular. The universal holds the being together (sunecheia);26 it gives the being a certain continuity that enables one to take up the being as an inquiry. At this stage of learning, we might make mistakes about the being of this particular, but it is not as if our acquaintance, qua universal, is something contrary to our error. Rather, ``while the universal is held, there are mistakes according to the particular'' (67 a 30).27 And it is precisely in this way that one can be familiar while lacking knowledge. Thus, to repeat, based upon the passage quoted above from the Posterior Analytics (71 a) (and con¢rmed and elucidated by that from the Prior Analytics), we can make the following determination about epagoªgeª: it shows itself as a mode or

26

Aristotle and Rational Discovery

comportment of speech (logos) which makes beings in the world manifest (indeed, makes their very encounterability apparent) in light of some universal. Moreover, epagoªgeª is not simply a scienti¢c activity, but rather humans, in their determination as beings with the nature of logos, a¡ect the speech comportment of epagoªgeª all the time. From these considerations, the reader can immediately intuit the complex role of aisthesis in the foregoing remarks about encountering beings in the world. On the one hand, the condition for the possibility to grasp something by sensuous perception would require the availability of a universal. Aisthesis needs some being, some form to grasp; it requires a delineated shapeö something continuous (suneches), some matter held together by formöin order to perceive. Aisthesis requires form in order to acquire familiarity with a something. With this claim, one is reminded of that passage from the Physics in which Aristotle argues that matter is not intuitable on its own (without form) except in speech.28 One does not encounter natural beings in the world without a form, for matter in physei-beings is not intuitableöexcept in logos. Aisthesis requires form to become familiar, humans require the universal in order to see. While one can open one's eyes and see something as formless as wood which is for the sake of the house, or bronze which is for the sake of the statue, these matters are still formed as ``wood'' or as ``bronze.'' But not only does a being as thinghood (ousia) require a form to be seen, but also colors, sizes, and other such things that come along with the thing (sumbebeªkoi) also require form to be seen. After all, all the ``categories'' are said to be beings; Aristotle makes this clear in both the treatise which bears that name (at the outset of which Aristotle implies that he is not talking of purely logical structures but rather ``toªn ontoªn'' or ``of beings'')29 and in the Physics, where Aristotle, looking for motion, ponders nothing less than everything that is and renders this everything as: ``a this, a so much, a such, or any of the other categories of being.''30 Moreover, even beings that have been traditionally conceived as shapeless ruling origins (archai), beings such as water or ¢re or air, are already shaped by a universal. But, with regard to our current discussionöthe perception and discovery of the particularöI want to suggest that aisthesis grasps the particular in light of the universal.31 Yet, even though the universal/form is prior to the sensuous perception of a being, aisthesis, too, remains crucial to becoming familiar with a being in such a way that one can intellectually disclose the nature of the being (in a de¢nition) and, subsequent to this disclosure, further a¡ect a comportment of episteªmeª through syllogism. After all, we saw that Aristotle argued that the speech register of epagoªgeª requires at once a fore-familiarity which provides the universal and the intuition or apprehension of the particular. Moreover, not only epagoªgeª resorts to aisthesis, but apodexis, too, unless it is to su¡er a great lack, will secure itself among sensuous perceptions. For ``if aisthesis is absent, the episteªmeª is lacking, seeing that this episteªmeª is acquired either by induction or by deduction. How else are we to have acquired the universal? Demonstration proceeds from universals, but universals happen through induction'' (Posterior Analytics, 81 b).32 And, as we know from the di¤cult passage at the end of Posterior Analytics, aisthesis remains the potency in human beings33 for the kind of openness and

On Discovering Nature through Epagoªgeª

27

wakefulness required to begin speaking in the comportment of epagoªgeª. The work of the potency of aisthesis is precisely to undergo the universal in such a way that humans can take on the shape of the perceived being in their soul;34 that is to say, aisthesis opens humans to the possibility of comporting themselves in a familiar way to the being. Thus, aisthesis opens up human awareness (gnoªsis) to the universal, such that it may ``come to rest'' in the soul. Sensuous perception does not add anything to the encounter with a being, but rather, in those beings in which logoi come to be (100 a 2), aisthesis allows one to be appropriated by the form that governs the being of the perceived thing. In an encounter with a being, aisthesis opens itself (in a rather chaotic way, if we are to take seriously the description in the Physics of active states [hexeis] and learning)35 to the reception of the beings; from out of the chaos of the encounter with the undi¡erentiated and the un-continuous (adiaforon), aisthesis becomes shaped and formed (ordered) by the beings (the categories) in such a way that the world (and its beings) becomes calm. Moreover, this ``calming'' emerges as a result of the coming-to-rest of the universal (eªremeªsantos tou katholou) in the soul. Once aisthesis opens the soul to its appropriation by the universal, one can then employ more sophisticated forms of analysis to assess the particular; ``for while one perceives the particular, sensuous perception is of the universal, just as of human and not Callious the human'' (100 b). By beginning in aisthesis, beings with logos open themselves before a ¢eld of in-di¡erentiation and receive the universal from the being. Here, Aristotle calls this, perhaps rudimentary, occurrence epagoªgeª. ``For it is aisthesis that puts universals in the soul'' (100 b 4). Yet this potency of aisthesis to open itself to universals seems to remain a speci¢cally logos-revolving endeavor. Universals are forms of logoi, as are forms, after all.36 Therefore, our ¢rst determination of epagoªgeª shines a revealing light upon one of the initial di¤culties of this chapter. That is to say, in the comportment of speech that shows itself as epagoªgeª, one must indeed begin with aisthesis; but one must not glean from this claim that human aisthesis means skirting aside one's endoxa or hermeneutic horizon in order to get to the pure experience of the thing. To be sure, human sensuous perception would seem already to be perception of endoxa, insofar as this interpretive horizon makes particulars encounterable at all. In discovering what something is, some particular something must become questionable, some being must invoke wonder. In sensuously perceiving the beingöand its questionable, wonder-provoking natureöone has begun to a¡ect the logos-comportment of epagoªgeª by no longer simply allowing the prouparchousa gnoªsis to speak for oneself, to shape one's experience of the being. Rather, one has a¡ected a comportment of wakefulness as aisthesis and, in a way, begun to step out, or unhinge oneself, from an awareness of a thing by our nature in order to achieve an awareness of a thing in accordance with its nature. Yet, this ``beginning'' is not enough to achieve an awareness of something by its nature; unhinging ourselves from the awareness of something by our nature (the prouparchousa gnoªsis) requires more than the simply feigning separation from the endoxa that shape us and our encounter with the world. Rather than feigning a separation from our nature, I would argue that, for Aristotle, the next step of

28

Aristotle and Rational Discovery

discovering what something is involves confronting37 our nature, or dialogically engaging the ruling interpretations that shape our experience of what something is in order, ¢rst, to make clear to ourselves what we already think about the being under investigation and, second, to work through those interpretations in order to a¤rm or deny them, to wakefully appropriate them as our own. This next movement would be the second determination we can make about epagoªgeª to which we can now turn: elucidating and dialogically engaging the prouparchousa gnoªsis. Before I continue to elucidate the second aspect of epagoªgeª toward which the above quoted passage points,38 allow me to counter a potential misunderstanding regarding my apparent application of certain Kantian formulations to Aristotle. The description above would seem to ¢rmly suggest a Kantian perspective, that is to say, one employing a priori concepts39 or some sort of selfconscious structure of disclosure which would be responsible for shaping the beings which become revealed in the world. Yet, this particular appearance remains an illusion if one conjures it from out of the Aristotelian cosmology. My arguments above are neither Kantian nor modern. On the one hand, the universal by which human beings are able to intuit beings in their particularity does not come from a subjective source; they do not suggest a consciousness unveiling the world in accordance with a priori concepts provided by that consciousness. While these Aristotelian universals are indeed a priori 40 they are not given by consciousness and they are not subjective. Moreover, I repeat that the structure by which we become familiar with particulars (universals) is precisely not empirical either;41 which is to say, for Aristotle, we do not acquire universals by ¢rst experiencing particulars and thereby subjectively developing universals through some subjective relational capacity via experience.42 The much discussed passage at the end of the Posterior Analytics43 details a descriptive sequence that moves from aisthesis, to memory, to experience, and then to universal that might otherwise be interpreted as an empirical process of the subjective relating of experiences into a subjective law or universal. Yet, it should be remembered that this passage is one in which Aristotle, again, invokes the dilemma of the Meno by claiming that we cannot already be born with a potency to be disposed towards beings in the manner of episteªmeª, yet we also cannot simply take (lambanoª ) them from being without somehow having already had them before (again, ``prouparchouses'') (99 b 25 ¡.). Thus, the empirical interpretation of the text would have to ignore this initial sentence which, again, insists that we are already disposed (in an imprecise way) with the universal. Humans, for Aristotle, are born with the capacity to acquire logos and logoi, not with the capacity to originally employ logical procedures to subjectively construct universalsöeither vague universals or precise ones. Children become enveloped by the logos-world, the prouparchousa gnoªsis, and only subsequent to becoming adult humans, to acquiring logos in an active and wakeful way can they a¡ect a critical disposition to this prouparchousa gnoªsis in order to begin the process of becoming familiar with the nature of a being by its own nature; that is to say, only subsequent to becoming humans can they a¡ect a disclosive disposition toward

On Discovering Nature through Epagoªgeª

29

a being in the way of episteªmeª.44 Thus, the procedure of epagoªgeª reveals a logical/ rational relationship between particular and universal that remains neither a priori, in the modern sense of that term, nor empirical. We must remove ourselves from that paradigm in order to think human learning and acquaintance with the world in the Aristotelian texts. Yet, one might naturally pose the question: from where do these prior universals come? If there is neither a subjective nor objective source for them, if these universals are not always already subjective forms by which each human shapes the world, then where do we locate the soil out of which these universals grow?

3. The motion of epagoªgeª: Disclosing the prouparchousa gnoªsis With this last question, we can begin to consider the second characteristic I glean from the passage quoted from the ¢rst lines of Posterior Analytics; for the second determination that we can make about epagoªgeª is precisely the answer to the question above: if not in consciousness, where is the location of these universals for Aristotle? Moreover, the following elucidation will simultaneously lend itself to answering the second problem posed by the chapter: why does Aristotle begin an inquiry into ``nature'' by seemingly withdrawing from nature and abstracting into ``conceptual''45 resources? Considering epagoªgeª 's relation to nature will help us to interpret this problem. In addition to having the characteristic of being a certain shape or comportment of disclosure in which humans hold themselves in speechöa comportment towards particulars in light of universalsöepagoªgeª carries within itself throughout all of its endeavors a natal origin which governs any potential outcome of the inductive inquiry: it comes to be prouparchouseªs gnoªseoªs, from an alreadysubtending and -governing acquaintance. Now, in our e¡ort to describe this structure more carefully, we must begin by bringing the meaning of gnoªsis into greater detail; for gnoªsis will most often be translated as ``knowledge'' and, while employing this term in a casual way might function quite well in the general English-language economy, in our attempt to understand Aristotle's technical vocabulary, perhaps we require more precision. It would seem that remaining sensitive to the di¡erence between episteªmeª and gnoªsis within the organon would be of utmost concern, but often the di¡erence is lost in the English translations: both are almost always translated as ``knowledge.'' Thus, I want to brie£y o¡er a contextualization of Aristotelian gnoªsis in order to describe better how epagoªgeª comes to be related to prouparchousa gnoªsis.46 As stated before, Aristotle considers episteªmeª to be a virtuous disposition. In fact, the Nicomachean Ethics counts it as one of the intellectual virtues, asserting that episteªmeª remains one of the shapes by which logos discloses a being, a shape everyone assumes makes manifest a being in such a way that it would not be possible to hold the being in another way.47 As we have said, all dispositions (hexeis) of speech bloom forth from out of the soil of fore-familiarity, but some dispositions of speech are disposed in such a way so as to be able to grant the possibility to

30

Aristotle and Rational Discovery

make this fore-familiarity itself visible. Here in the Ethics, concerned precisely with ethos and hexis, Aristotle argues (as in the Analytica) that making beings manifest happens through the speech comportments of epagoªgeª and syllogism. However, as he often says,48 while syllogism takes root in universals in order that the soul might £ower forth into episteªmeª, it is epagoªgeª which makes manifest the universals in which syllogism takes root and it is epagoªgeª which makes possible the disclosure of the archai in which syllogism must have faith.49 Yet, it is quite clear from the Greek that gnoªsis, especially as fore-familiarity, is neither episteªmeª nor any virtue, but rather gnoªsis becomes here described as the wellspring out of which episteªmeª can £ow at all. Moreover, it would also appear that the archai, the principles or ruling origins in which episteªmeª and syllogism have faith, govern and compel speech from within this structure of forefamiliarity. Thus, gnoªsis shows itself as di¡erent from knowledge, yet appears to be a way of securing and preserving familiarity with the world and its beings. And, while not all beings have speech (logos), it would appear that gnoªsis underwrites the very possibility for speech as well. Indeed, speech's various shapes (syllogism, epagoªgeª, rhetoric) derive their forms from gnoªsis, or rather from this prouparchousa gnoªsis. It is as if, for Aristotle, speech has di¡erent forms of sensibility, such that speech disposed in one way makes a being manifest and visible in that way, while other comportments bring a being forth before us in another way. Speech would appear to hold a variety of potential shapes into which beings can be born in the moments of disclosure. Now, this unique quality in the making manifest of beings in their familiarity (gnoªsis) takes place in beings which have speech (logos). Towards the beginning of Aristotle's summary of the emergence (gignetai) of universals in the soul, Aristotle makes a sharp division between beings who have the capacity for gnoªsis and those who have the capacity for gnoªsis in such a way that the familiarity abides and preserves (moneª ). As it turns out, the kind of being for which familiarity abides and preserves belongs to the being whose nature it is to have logos: the human being (99 b 39 ¡.). The reader will recall the beginning of the Metaphysics in which the human being is said to be di¡erentiated from other beings with sense perception and memory (features of gnoªsis) by precisely the human natural necessity to ``live by logos.'' As such, logos remains a principle of preservation and abidance for human beings in direct relation to its belonging to a class of beings whose souls become crucially shaped by gnoªsis. Yet, at the same time, human nature remains distinct in the way that it relates to gnoªsis. In Generation of Animals,50 we see this point a¤rmed in the assertion that generation is not the only way that living things preserve and shape themselves. Rather, di¡erent living things have di¡erent work-modes by which they abide and secure their natures in the world. Many animals have the form of gnoªsis, for example, of sensuous perception. Yet others participate in the kind of familiarity that lends itself to phroneªsis (731 b 1)öan intellectual virtue requiring logos. As we have seen above, humans also have a gnoªsis shaped by sensuous perception, yet the ``already-subtending and -governing familiarity'' would seem to be more at home in the motions of human natureöthose in accordance to logos, which, as

On Discovering Nature through Epagoªgeª

31

we have also seen above, depend upon sensuous perceptions, but are not limited thereby. It is the assertion of this book that we can glean from Aristotle's words on this subject that humans undergo all of the world that they are capable of undergoing in accordance with nature, indeed, human nature: and this nature is that of the being who has logos. Phroneªsis, episteªmeª, sophia: these are all comportments into which humans ¢nd themselves thanks to their nature as logos-having/ determined beings. But, we must immediately qualify our assertion by arguing that while we can certainly translate the human mode of preserving and maintaining its nature with the phrase ``rational being,'' we cannot understand Aristotle as arguing for some private rationality by which humans master and possess the Earth. Quite to the contrary, rationality does not belong to any particular human in isolation. In fact, the condition for the possibility to be a logoshaving being is to be in the midst of an already-at-work and already-in-motion logosöpublic or political rationality. Logos appropriates the potential human and initiates the being into human nature. If there must be a relation of inside/ outside in this occurrence, logos begins outside in nature. Or rather, the potential human begins outside and is then appropriated by an already-subtending and -governing logos. While the details of the relation of the individual logos to what we are here calling the appropriating rationality must be left to a later chapter,51 it is quite clear from the context that these last words o¡er themselves as the answer to the question of the ``location'' of universals. We must, of course, employ our choice of terminology in scare quotes. After all, where is the appropriating logos? Can you point to it? Where is the English language: I can point to particular instances of people speaking it, but where is the truth of the English language in its complete disclosure? Now, if Aristotle wanted to argue that these instances are mere particularities that we gather together into universals, or forms, then we would not be concerned with pointing toward the broader logos, the prouparchousa gnoªsis, since they would be more like subjective determinations of particular instances. Yet, as we have argued, Aristotle's procedure is not empirical; these forms, these universals, have being. Moreover, it is precisely epagoªgeª, the logos-comportment, which Aristotle argues can enable the disclosure of the prouparchousa gnoªsis. Such is, perhaps, the reason why Aristotle begins his considerations so often in epagoªgeª. How do we point to the nature of phroneªsis or sophia without beginning in the already-subtending and -governing structure of logoi? These are beings whose origins as ``beings of concern to us'' owe their very being to this structure of hetero-rationality, of periechon52 rationalityöindeed our capacity to even sense a wise action depends upon the prouparchousa gnoªsis. To return to the initial pages of part one of this chapter, we can see now why Aristotle begins the quest for the ¢rst principles of nature by invoking the prouparchousa gnoªsis. The question of the source of universals is precisely the question of why Aristotle turns towards the hermeneutical horizon of endoxa for nature. Where is nature? When I open my eyes, where do I see nature in its particularity? If you are Aristotle (and even if you are a contemporary person), you see that everyone talks about nature, but no one can point me toward one in a way

32

Aristotle and Rational Discovery

that convincingly di¡erentiates it from anything else. Nature lies nearest to us, yet remains the furthest away from sensuous perception. Perhaps the problem lies in the fact that we do not have the capacity/dunamis to sense nature as a being. Our familiarity with nature remains, in one way, quite rich, yet in another way, totally impoverished. What then must we do? In order to claim to have encouraged nature to disclose itself, to reveal to us its truth, we need to achieve a way of coming to an awareness of nature in its particularity or in accordance with its own nature. To discover what nature is, nature must become questionable in its particularity. One ¢nds oneself born in the middle of nature already articulated as such by the periechon tou logou, yet in trying to perceive nature, the inquirer realizes that s/he was never really able to di¡erentiate nature from anything elseöeverything is nature. In sensuously perceiving natureöand its questionable, wonder-provoking characteröone has begun to a¡ect the logoscomportment of epagoªgeª by no longer simply allowing the prouparchousa gnoªsis to speak for oneself, to shape one's experience of nature. Rather, the inquirer has a¡ected a comportment of wakefulness as aisthesis and, in a way, begun to step out, or unhinge herself, from an awareness of nature by our nature in order to achieve an awareness of nature in accordance with its nature. Yet this ``beginning'' is not enough to achieve an awareness of physis by its nature; unhinging ourselves from the awareness of physis by our nature (the prouparchousa gnoªsis) requires more than simply feigning separation from the endoxa that shape us and our encounter with the world. Rather than feigning a separation from our nature, in book one of the Physics, Aristotle takes the next step of discovering what nature is by engaging the prouparchousa gnoªsis that has always already formed him and his experience of nature. He a¡ects a critical comportment toward his prouparchousa gnoªsisöin a way, stepping out of himselföin order to make clear to himself what he already thinks about nature. Only subsequent to this work is he then able to disclose the archeª of nature in a de¢nitionöa movement not divorced from that of the prouparchousa gnoªsis, but rather one that reinvigorates it and preserves its continuity.

Chapter Two

Speaking of Motion

``My a¡ection seems to be something like this: it's as if someone who gazed upon [stationary,] beautiful animals somewhere . . . were to get a desire to gaze upon them moving and contending in some struggle that seemed appropriate for their bodies.'' (19 C)1 In the foregoing chapter, we were able, on the one hand, to come to a better understanding of how it is that epagoªgeª functions, not only in the texts as a logical procedure, but also in the very everyday functions of human beings. Epagoªgeª showed itself as a comportment of human speech that £eshes out the world in such a way as to make beings intuitable and sensible. On the other hand, we saw that epagoªgeª, qua logos-comportment, has a unique and privileged place in the logical treatises, insofar as it remains a logical disposition the implementation of which can help to lay bare the sources from which humans can a¡ect the ethos of episteªmeª and bring a being into full, complete disclosure. Further, at least part of the capacity epagoªgeª carries that enables it to lay bare the archai derives from its origins in the logos-structure that Aristotle calls the prouparchousa gnoªsis and its ability to render this structure visible. Epagoªgeª makes certain otherwise invisible beings visible by precisely its capacity to disclose the structure of prouparchousa gnoªsis. For instance, we saw that certain beings that humans otherwise take for granted require the speech comportment of epagoªgeª to work through the structure of fore-familiarity in order to disclose the being and, indeed, make the being sensible in a more precise, indicative way. Among these beings, we argued, was ``nature.'' How are we to get nearer to natureöto be able to point to her, to disclose her meaningfullyöwhen she remains so universal, indeed abstract, so as to be impossible to di¡erentiate her from anything else? In order to make nature tactile, Aristotle needed to £esh out a body for her in logos and, in order to accomplish this, he consulted what had been bequeathed to him through the cultural memory in the form of wise fore-familiarity. Yet, all this talk surrounding the manifestation of physis through £eshing out a body for it in logosöa rational body and/or a body in speechöwould seem to hypostatize nature into some sort of concept separate from what we would otherwise call ``nature.'' If nature requires reason in order to be there and to be visible as such, then are we not arguing that ``nature'' is a concept, the true location of which lies in consciousness? In answer to this question, it would seem rather unsatisfactory at this point in the development simply to repeat the claim at the

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Aristotle and Rational Discovery

beginning of the ¢rst chapter thatösince, for Aristotle, there is a nature to our everything, even to our inquiryöthere cannot be a nature under and against logos. Indeed, if logos itself has a nature, then nature would be more primordial than reason and, in fact, would subtend and shape the manifestation of logos as it reveals its nature in nature. With the considerations surrounding our reading of epagoªgeª as our guide, we need now to o¡er a more subtle interpretation of physis in Aristotle. The elucidation of the texts on the question of nature will enable us more carefully to render physis sensible and, thereby, help us to see how logos too has a nature and, thus, must be thought through as a nature and not against or separate from her.2 In his attempts at bringing nature into greater relief, Aristotle, of course, does not begin his elucidations in a vacuum. Indeed, one quickly intuits from the ¢rst chapters of the Physics that a concern for the being of motionöif and how it is^ motivates much of the discussion. And up until book three of his Physics, Aristotle operates with a presumed and casual conception of motion. Concerned, ¢rstly, with articulating the inherited tradition of the meaning of physis, and then clarifying the aporiai that show themselves in this received interpretation (an interpretation which constitutes our meaning-horizon of physis), Aristotle renews the discussion ``from another starting point'' (192 b 6),3 the consequences of which lead to the placement of physis within a relation of deep intimacy with kinesis (192 b 21 ¡.). Indeed, this is so much the case that, depending upon the register and focus of the argument in any given section of the text, Aristotle will use the same words to express physis that elsewhere are employed to put ``motion'' into descriptive (and even circularly de¢ning)4 words. In fact, in the broadest articulation of nature at work, we can even say that nature is motion, insofar as the most fundamental characteristic of all the manifestations of nature is that they move or govern motion.5 However, at the beginning of gamma, Aristotle arrives at the necessity to distinguish motion more clearly; that is, he will attempt to speak of motion in terms that allow it to show itself in a way that, on the one hand, denotes its uniqueness and, on the other hand, refrains from de¢ning motion in terms of itself. Coming to a de¢nition of motion will be crucial to £eshing out a body for nature in speech, since ``ignoring motion, it is necessary also to be ignorant of physis.''6 One possibility of phrasing this task and necessity is found at the inauguration of the text in which Aristotle makes a logical distinction between two fundamentally di¡erent ways through which an acquaintance or familiarity (gnoªsis) can show itself: on the one hand, something can be familiar to us and, on the other hand, something can be familiar by its nature (184 a 17¡.). It is in keeping with our reading of epagoªgeª in Chapter One of this manuscript to suggest that Aristotle has thus far in the Physics (that is, up to gamma) relied on the general familiarity with motion provided by casual encounters to allow him to delineate the horizon of the discussion of nature. Further, we can add to this suggestion that Aristotleö drawing precisely from this more broadly articulated horizon of motionönow seeks to allow for an acquaintance with motion by its nature through the exercise of what is often called ``de¢nition'' (orismos). But what is de¢nition, for

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Aristotle? Can we argue that de¢nition, qua speech comportment, isolates the unique properties of a being in such a way as to think the being conceptually? Does Aristotle seek to conceptualize nature and motion? Or rather does the activity of de¢nition have a more phenomenological purpose for him?7 The question of de¢nition and how it shows itself in Aristotle will prove to be important for coming to terms with nature. Not only is de¢nition a way of speaking of nature, but we will see that nature bequeaths to speech the capacity to point toward the dependability and consistency of a being through precisely the same structure through which nature secures and preserves all of its beings: sunecheia. Working through this reading of de¢nition within Aristotle's search for physis through a de¢nition of motion, I will show that the motion of reason holds in accordance with nature; indeed, it remains secured and preserved by nature, by reason's nature. Yet ¢rst we need to interpret motion in its continuity more carefully; that is to say, we need to think through sunecheia as it reveals itself in Aristotle's physis in order to understand why it plays such an important role in the kosmos and, therefore, in coming to terms with nature.

1. Motion admits of being: Aristotle's confrontation with Parmenides At the beginning of gamma, Aristotle argues that nature is a ruling origin for motion. From this claim, we may intuit that a being's motion reveals its nature, since a motion ¢nds both its origin and its end within the limits placed by nature. As mentioned before, our unfamiliarity with motion results in a fundamental lack in our familiarity with nature. Indeed, when motion lies withdrawn from our familiarity in a state of latency (lanthanoª ), nature too remains covered over and hidden from us (200 b 12).8 If we concede this argument to Aristotle, we might be left wondering what we know of the world at all. After all, presumably few, if any, work in accordance with a familiarity with motion, qua de¢nition. In fact, the sheer di¤culty of Aristotle's de¢nition of motion9 would appear to bar access to the familiarity with a natural being, qua natural, if indeed we need to possess knowledge of motion in order to be familiar with the nature of that being. What do we know of a being if we do not know its nature? Aristotle would argue that in some way we are in fact familiar (via the Prohuparchousa gnosis considered in the last chapter), but we a¡ect a comportment of ignorance, we ignore the being in its nature by simply avoiding the intellectual work of disclosing the limits in laying down the boundaries of motion (diorisamenois). The Prohuparchousa gnosis functions quite well without much re£ectionö that is to say, it functions quite well when we simply ignore it and let it shape the way we experience the world. Yet Aristotle here implies that it need not remain so, we have at our disposal a capacity for disclosure that we seem mostly to avoid. When we ignore it with volition, we remain ignorant and the natural beings stay withdrawn from us in latency. Moreover, if nature is in fact an archeª of motion, then there is perhaps no more important being to stop

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Aristotle and Rational Discovery

ignoring than motion, and none more urgently to bring into familiarity by setting down its boundaries. For, given the foregoing assumption, motion will involve everything that is physeiöand ignorance of physis must, therefore, be ignorance most of all. Yet there remains more at stake in Aristotle's de¢nition of motion. The context in which this de¢nition arises betrays Aristotle's e¡orts to counter a devastating argument asserted by Parmenides and Zeno, an argument perhaps motivating the entirety of the Physics: namely, that motion is not. While this is not the place to pursue a detailed account of either the Parmenidean argument or that of Zeno, let it su¤ce to assume the reader's familiarity with these arguments and to simply repeat the basic notion subtending why Eleatism forbids motion from ``being.'' In his poem On Nature, the criterion Parmenides employs to distinguish between being and non-being is the ability for something to admit of the phrase ``it is''; in order for something to truly be, one must be able to speak of it in the present tense: II Come now, I will tell theeöand do thou hearken to my saying and carry it awayöthe only two ways of search that can be thought of. The ¢rst, namely, that It is, and that it is impossible for anything not to be, is the way of conviction, [5] for truth is its companion. The other, namely, that It is not, and that something must needs not beöthat, I tell thee, is a wholly untrustworthy path. For you cannot know what is notöthat is impossibleönor utter it . . . VI It needs must be that what can be thought and spoken of is; for it is possible for it to be, and it is not possible for what is nothing to be . . . VII For this shall never be proved, that the things that are not are; and do thou restrain thy thought from this way of inquiry.10 Among the beings that cannot be spoken of as being are beings that ``were'' or ``will be.'' If they cannot be spoken of as being present, they cannot be spoken of as being. For Parmenides and the Eleatics, things in motion belong to this latter class. Thus, motion does not admit of being for them. Dwelling thoughtfully within the poem for a few moments, the poem's assertion becomes more meaningful and strong. If things in motion are pushed into that motion by something else, there remains a certain haphazard character to the way they are. The cause of their motion emerges from the past, sending them at one moment here, at another moment there, and at a future moment? Who knows where the being might turn up? Beings in motion are never quite there (as in ``present''), but they are always on the way from somewhere toward somewhere. In fact, if we think of motion broadly, then beings who su¡er motions like alteration,

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37

generation, destructionöthat is to say, beings that undergo change (metaboleª )öthese beings can never be said to be, insofar as they are always changing; they are never fully there in being. To say these things, is also to say that these beings appear as beings of chance and such beings cannot be said to properly be. Thus, Aristotle will need to show that beings in motion (and motion itself ) must properly be in such a way as to provide an order to their seeming haphazardnessöhe will need to show how beings in motion are there, and not by chance. Apparently, epagoªgeª can adequately reveal that motion is. Yet, challenging the sophisticated11 arguments of the Eleatics requires a more rigorous critique which will reveal not only that motion is, but how and why. Interestingly, it would seem that Aristotle appropriates as much here from Parmenides as he refutes. While we can indicate clearly a confrontation with Parmenides and the Eleatics in the physical texts, there remains a heavy debt to the principle behind their methodology; Parmenides and Aristotle both insist that logos follows nature, or that thinking should let nature speak. In light of Parmenides' claim that it is not possible to ``prove12 that the things that are not are,'' Aristotle's general trajectory follows Parmenides'; he attempts precisely to show that there is something unnatural about speaking of beings that are not as if they are. Although Aristotle wants to argue against Parmenides (but within the paradigm set up by his poem) by claiming that motion is something that admits of being and does not fall into the anarchic realm of chance or haphazardness, he nevertheless accepts the imperative to bring to a¤rmative utterance only beings that are; which is to say, Aristotle wants to speak of the beings of motion (and motion itself ) in such a way as to avoid a violation of the principle of non-contradiction. Thus, it would appear that, in an important sense, speaking, for both Parmenides and Aristotle, brings forth beings in their nature. In speaking lies a manner of comporting oneself to a being in such a way that one may disclose that being in its nature and bring its nature out of latency. Of course, speaking (logos) must be properly disposed,13 qua orthos logos, in order to render a being visible in such a way as to be familiar with it by its own nature, as opposed to ours. But, given this condition, logos can open humans toward a being in such a way as to break free of the constraints that bind one to one's own nature in order to disclose an other being in its nature. However, while Parmenides successfully achieves the paradigm for disclosure, at least for Aristotle, he makes several critical mistakes with regard to the being of motionöand since motion ¢nds its governing source in nature, Parmenides makes perceivable mistakes with regard to rendering nature visible. Perhaps one of the most fundamental of Parmenides' mistakes shows itself in his lack of speaking of and sensing the potency of beings in nature;14 ``for this nature having been perceived, their entire mistake would have dissolved'' (192 a 35). Toward the beginning of book three, in trying to ¢nd motion among the beings that are, Aristotle begins his search by considering beings in their broadest articulation. Everything that is, he says, shows itself in such a way that it is either ``fully and actively what it is only (entelexeia monon)'' or in such a way that it is both ``potentially what it is and fully and actively what it

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Aristotle and Rational Discovery

is (dunamei kai entelexeia)'' (200 b 27). Having ignored potency from his considerations, this nature eludes Parmenides and, as a result, nature lies in latency. While we will consider potency in another chapter, it is important here to note that, in passing over dunamis, the Eleatics failed to perceive that motion is. But perhaps this assertion remains an inadequate refutation. In addition to speaking of potency as a way that beings in nature can be and, therefore, are, Aristotle must also show what kind of a being motion is. After all, one problem of uncovering and disclosing the being of motion is indicating the category or structure through which it can show itself. Upon re£ection, this task becomes quite daunting indeed. At the outset of undertaking his search, Aristotle wonders to what sort of category motion might belong. Of beings, there is: A this, a so much, a this kind, or one of the other categories of being. Being in relation to something is attributed to what exceeds or what falls short, or to what acts and what is acted upon, or generally to what moves and what is moved; for what moves is a mover of something moved, and what is moved is moved by something moving it, and there is no motion apart from things. For what changes always changes either in thinghood, or in amount, or in quality . . . so that motion nor change will be anything apart from the things named, since there is, in fact, nothing other than the things named. (200 b 27 ¡.) While Aristotle moves quickly through the analysis of beings in order to ¢nd where motion belongs, we can gather from his observations that motion cannot be a being in any way that resembles what we most immediately name as a being. Motion does not have thinghood. Yet, it is not really ``carried along'' with thinghood either (it does not appear to be a color, size, place, or any sumbebeªkos). While it does not belong under a categoryöit cannot be said to be a thing, a quality, or a quantity, etc.öit nevertheless cannot be apart from them either. In making this claim, we must note that, for Aristotle, while sumbebeªkoi do have a secondary status in relation to thinghood (ousia), they nevertheless are beings.15 Categories are not abstract cognitive structures into which humans stu¡ beings in order to make them conform to human knowledge. Rather, as we saw in the introduction, categories are beings, for himöthey are the beings that are. So, while motion cannot be said to be one of the beings, Aristotle says there is no motion apart from physei-beings: motion shows itself within the categories as animating their individual natures. Motion, we might say, is not a being, but rather is indicative of being. Motion indicates the nature of beings and it is in this way that motion admits of being.16 Of the kinds of beings that we can say are, motion indicates ``how'' that being is. For instance, the being of ousia is generation and destruction.17 When we consider the being ``how much,'' we can say that it shows itself in the world as addition and subtraction. A ``quality'' alters from white to black. In order to think motion revealing the nature of a being, we must unhinge ourselves from the conception of motion as a body moving through empty space. Such a notion is quite foreign to Aristotle. The nearest meaningful equivalent to the modern conception of ``space'' would be

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39

``the void'' (kenon), the being of which Aristotle explicitly denies. Perhaps the best way of expressing kinesis in all of its manifestations within the Aristotelian world is with the word ``change'' or perhaps also the Latinate ``transformation.'' After all, metaboleª remains the word that Aristotle employs when he wants to name motion in the broadest possible way. Metaboleª, or transformation, names every sort of motion, whether withering, growing, decreasing, destroying or even kinesis kata topon. Every motion bespeaks a being's nature. The nature of thinghood compels this being into generation and decline. When we speak of the nature of quality, we speak of color's disposition to alter in accordance with its nature: from white to grey to black, for instance. Insofar as every being has a nature, even at the Aristotelian equivalent of a molecular (that is, categorical) level, it expresses that nature in the way that it moves. In further elaborating the kind of being that motion exhibits, Aristotle has prepared the way for his de¢nition: ``A distinction having been made in each kind of being between the fully active and what is only potentially, the entelechia of whatever is potentially, as potency, is motion'' (altered translation; my italics; 201 a 10). If Aristotle were simply to write ``the entelechia of whatever is potentially,'' then we would have a de¢nition for the being of any being in such a way that even Parmenides would probably accept. For example, the entelechia of a wood for building (as something that is potentially) is a house;18 the entelechia of the bronze for sculpting is a statue; or the entelechia of the primary matter in the human womb is the human being. Entelechia here might be translated as ``holding itself complete,'' or ``holding its end in itself.'' By this translation, one understands the de¢nition as claiming that when a house has realized its full potential, it holds itself and remains disposed as complete. The complete house, realizing the potency inherent in its wood, holds itself together and stands out in the world in a state of completeness as the being that is grasped in speech: ``house.'' Among potential natural examples, the ``human being'' achieves its end when it holds itself forth among the beings in the world in accordance to its highest potential which is expressed in speech. Yet Aristotle pushes the de¢nition further and thereby reveals that motion admits of being, but not in the same way as a house or a human being. Rather, the entelechia of wood for building (as something that is potentially), as potency, is building (or rather, motion). The bronze for sculpting when it holds itself together in completion, not as bronze but as potency, is sculpting. Moreover, if we want to remain on Aristotle's molecular level (that is, categorical) then we can plot the de¢nition of motion of a quality thus: ``the holding itself complete of the alterable, as alterable, is alteration.'' Against Parmenides, Aristotle's de¢nition indicates (at least logically) that motion admits of being.

2.

Motion is secured as being by continuity

Simply to say that Parmenides committed a mistake by holding motion to the same kind of being as that of other, more categorical beings is not enough.

40

Aristotle and Rational Discovery

Certainly, motion ``admits of being'' but we will need to show how Aristotle secures and preserves the being of motion against the other critiques of becoming. How does motion stand ¢rm within becoming? How does motion hold itself secure as an end? On the one hand, we will need to address how Aristotle shows that motion does not belong to those things that come to be by the causes of chance and haphazardness. On the other hand, we need to indicate the structure through which Aristotle intellectually makes motion pass in order to secure its status as ``admitting of being'': sunecheia. The clari¢cation and resolution of the ¢rst of these two problems we will achieve by considering Aristotle's remarks on automaton in book two of the Physics; the second of which we will develop out of books ¢ve and eight. Aristotle raises the issue of chance as a consequence of his considerations surrounding cause. After having o¡ered an interpretation of causality and the various ways that a cause can be conceived, Aristotle begins to wonder whether chance (automaton)öand its human derivative, luck (tucheª )öcan be said to cause anything. After all, Aristotle argues in his remarks on causality that, of the four causes (matter, or that ``out of which something comes into being''; form, or ``the gathering in speech19 of the what-it-is-for-it-to-be (to ti en einai)''; the ¢rst mover, or ``that from which the ¢rst beginning of change or of rest is''; and the end, or that for-the-sake-of-which something comes to be (194 b 25)), telos remains the most primordial since it is underwritten by the good; for ``that forthe-sake-of-which means to be the best thing and the end of the other things, and let it make no di¡erence to say the good itself or the apparent good'' (195 a 25).20 Yet, if ¢nal cause remains most primordial and underwritten by the good, then how can something be said to come to be through a chance cause? After all, if nature is a cause, the ultimate goal of which is the best or the good, then nature works in such a way as to cause the emergence of a being so that its end lies already inscribed in its initial emergence as a potency. One might protest that there are numerous occurrences where one encounters events that appear to have no other source but chance. For example, ``someone gathering contributions [or collecting a debt] would have come for the sake of collecting money had he known [that the person from whom he could collect would be there]; but he came not for the sake of this, but it happened to him incidentally to go and to do this'' (196 b 35).21 Thus, one might argue that the cause compelling the collection of the money was chance. Yet Aristotle insists that the occurrence betrays not a causality without quali¢cation or a simple cause, but rather a cause incidentally. By this assertion, he means that, as a cause of something, automaton remains derivative of some more primordial cause. In the example given, the more primordial cause would be ``the new shoes'' or whatever else might have brought the creditor and the debtor to the marketplace. Thus, Aristotle would argue that chance was a cause of the ``collection of money'' only incidentally and it is, in fact, derivative of these two teleological strands of cause that each brought the creditor and the debtor together. As an example taken from a more ``natural'' occurrence, one need only point toward any biological entity. When do dogs come to be from shrimp? Aside

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from Aristotle's critique of humans who act like plants in the Metaphysics,22 when do we see human beings giving birth to plants? For Aristotle, nature is a principle and cause ``always'' or ``for the most part.'' If chance were something primary and central to the causality of nature, then we would be replete with examples of ``monstrosity,'' or with instances of animals coming to be from plants and from beings whose form betrays a mixture of the forms ox and human or dog and rose. Indeed, if chance were to rule as a cause, it would not be considered ``chance'' at all but rather ``consistent'' and ``for the most part.'' But this is not the case in Aristotle's world. For him, form always or for the most part comes to be from form:23 human gives rise to human and rose gives rise to rose. Thus, chance cannot be a cause of a being or occurrence in nature always or for the most part24 and, if it cannot be said to be a cause always or for the most part, chance cannot be a primary cause. Moreover, if we are to say that motion admits of being, then motion too will need to reveal itself in ways that are always or for the most part; which is to say, motion must show consistency and cannot ¢nd its origin in haphazardness or chance causality. Among the ¢rst moves Aristotle makes to begin to show the consistency of motion lies in book ¢ve of the Physics. Here, Aristotle suggests that the way we often speak of motion lends itself to confusion. In order to think more clearly about motion we need to methodically narrow the ways that humans speak about motion to its primary being. At the beginning of book ¢ve, Aristotle begins to do precisely this by indicating that people speak about things changing sometimes incidentally and sometimes simply. An incidental motion indicates that something becomes moved not primarily, but secondarily, or rather, ``when we say that the educated one walks because that to which it is incidental to be educated walks'' (224 a 21). For Aristotle, in order to reveal the being of motion we need to speak more precisely and narrow our focus to metaboleª in its most primary sense: ``but there is something that is moved neither incidentally nor on account of any other thing belonging to it, but on account of its being moved primarily. And this is what is moved [or moves something] in its own right, and it di¡ers in accordance with a di¡erence in the motion'' (224 a 30). Thus, we need to discriminate more carefully when speaking of change and I would argue that, in book ¢ve, Aristotle attempts to discard everything incidental to motion. For once those incidental things which are said of motion are discarded, Aristotle believes that we will be left with primary change, a change that will reveal a consistency to motion. Ultimately what will most distinguish the being of a primary motion is its oneness. Here we observe perhaps another moment in which Aristotle simultaneously struggles against Parmenides while appropriating a central tenet of his conception of nature; Aristotle spends much of the chapter considering how it is that motionösomething otherwise conceived as being divided, incomplete, and many (and therefore unable to properly be)öcan be understood as one. Aristotle begins chapter four by listing the ways that motion is said to be one. On the one hand, we speak of motion as generically one. For example, a motion is one if it belongs to one of the categories which admit of motion. With

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Aristotle and Rational Discovery

regard the being ``what kind,'' we speak of a motion as generically one when it alters from white to black. Every change of color, therefore, is a motion of quality, yet this remains generically di¡erent from a change of place (227 a 35). On the other hand, a motion can be one speci¢cally; when we observe a motion from white to whiter and black to blacker, we observe motions that are generically identical to each other. Yet, whitening is speci¢cally di¡erent than blackening. Finally, Aristotle further di¡erentiates how a motion can be observed as one by the phrase ``simply one.'' Within a motion that we speak of as ``simply one'' lies the structure through which Aristotle wants to show how motion remains held together as one, and, therefore, can be thought not only as one, but of admitting of being and standing ¢rm in a certain sort of completeness.25 To be considered simply one, a motion must be one in three ways: ``for the things about which we speak in a motion are three in number, the what, the in which, and the when'' (227 b 25). Aristotle argues that, when we speak of a generically or speci¢cally one motion, we mean the category which su¡ers motion. When we speak of a motion holding itself together (echomeneªn) as one, we mean one held together in time. And ¢nally, if we speak of a motion that is simply one, we mean one that is seen as one in all three ways; which is to say, each of the parts of a simple motion reveal themselves in such a way that they exhibit a certain sort of completeness. For example, one can speak of a motion as being one when the being su¡ering motion (Aristotle gives the example of ``a human being or gold'') remains held together as one; when the category in which motion belongs betrays a speci¢city; and when the time in which a motion occurs remains held together in such a way that its extremities are oneöthat is to say, when the time is not interrupted and reveals a completeness or wholeness. Clearly, this kind of oneness is not the same as the oneness that we normally ascribe to beings that are; in the example used before of ``house,'' for instance, we saw that a house ¢nds its actual being when it ful¢lls its potency and shows itself as complete. A human being ful¢lls its end and can be said to be in its fullest sense when it achieves its full potency to be what is named in speech by ``human.'' But a primary, singular, simple motion has a di¡erent sort of completenessöan incomplete completeness.26 Even though Aristotle has shown that motions can be one, nevertheless, the oneness exhibited is quite curiousö it is incomplete: What motion, then, is simply one, has been said; and further, what is complete is said to be one, whether in genus, in species, or in its own being, just as also with other things, completeness and wholeness belong to what is one. But there are also times when what is incomplete is called one, just so long as it is continuous. (228 b 13) A condition for the possibility of oneness in the primary sense is continuity, or sunecheia. Moreover, it would seem that we are not talking simply about motion here. Rather the continuous according to the above quoted passage would characterize the being of any being worthy of its being.27 But what does continuous mean? Aristotle o¡ers his de¢nition in chapter three of book ¢ve:

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The continuous is that which is next to something, but I call them continuous only when the limits at which they are touching become one and the same, and, as the name [suneches] implies, hold together. And this is not possible if the extremities are two. And it is clear from this de¢nition that the continuous is among those things out of which some one thing naturally comes into being as a result of their uniting. (227 a 10) The continuous reveals itself in beings as an indication that something28 rules over the being of a being in such a way as to dissolve a being's internal di¡erences and unify this being in such a way that it is preserved in the world; continuity governs and secures the being of any particular being. In fact, it accounts for its very identity as the being that it is. In the event that a being emerges in physis that has its continuity brought into question or challenged, then the being runs the risk of losing its being, insofar as it would no longer be held together as a unity. Indeed, perhaps every being emerging in physis remains under the threat of losing its unity and thus its being.29 If a creature loses its continuity, it loses its very identity and its being dissolves, rupturing the being that it is. In this way we might describe death as precisely the radical division of a unity, the total dissolution of identity into di¡erence. From this rather obscure description, we can see that for Aristotle continuity remains the de¢nitive condition for and characteristic of the unity and, thereby, identity of a given being; and identity is nothing else than radical di¡erence held together into unity in which the limits of a being dissolve into oneöone limit against the world. Where something remains contiguous (not continuous), di¡erences remain expressed and the limits or extremities remain manifold. Yet, continuity melts the limits away and the extremities become one. Upon re£ection, we might wonder how we are to make a rigorous demarcation to justify this di¡erence between contiguous and continuous. In carrying on in our daily lives and without further ado, we immediately accept this radical di¡erence between touching things and continuous thingsöthe result of which justi¢es a di¡erence between identity and di¡erence. But what about the less obvious things? As mentioned before, the Physics addresses all of those things in physis that are not readily and easily explainableömotion, time, place, the in¢niteöthese are beings with very curious being. They are not quite beings, in the categorical sense, but they nevertheless are. Thus, among the less obvious examples of a distinction that we make between contiguous and continuous would be in the example of place. Aristotle argues that by natureöand not by imagination, consciousness' concepts, or human conventionöthere is a distinction between places. One curious example that we might o¡er would be the river bed and the estuary (insofar as the estuary reveals a dual nature as belonging to the river bed, while also containing tidal water from the sea). The place for all the ¢sh is the river as a whole, limited by the river bed. All the ¢sh are in this place, insofar as we speak of the place of the ¢sh. Yet, simultaneously, ``this'' estuary ¢sh belongs in place within ``this part'' of the river, not in another part, so that if we are speaking, not of the whole river, but of this part of the river (say estuary), then we have di¡erent

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places. An estuary possesses continuity as a being; it is a ``¢rst motionless boundary of what surrounds'' (212 a 22). However, when it becomes spoken of as a part of the river, the contiguous transforms into the continuous. From where does the di¡erentiation among places emanate? Indeed, from where does the di¡erentiation between the contiguous and continuous of any being emanate? We moderns would probably answer this question with Kantian explanations. But, for Aristotle, this is not an epistemological issueöit is not a matter of humans applying concepts of consciousness, it is not about humans appropriating nature with linguistic and conceptual categories. Rather, the di¡erence betrays an ontological issue that traverses the consideration of the being of place and its relationship to the many-saidedness of beings. Place gives itself to us as such by nature, not by unnatural convention. Place originates in and underliesöin a ruling and determinate way (huparcheª )öthe being of any natural being. Moreover, to place belongs by nature an as structure that can only be revealed in speech, but, again, this as structure revealed by speech belongs to the being by nature.30 One explanation might lie within the ontological status of dunamis. The strange fact that beings can claim being on the basis of a potency o¡ers us an opportunity to think the unity of continuity in light of potencyö``this part'' or any part of the river possesses the potency for place, provided it can be seen as such. Thus, contiguous beings, such as a left and right hand touching, possess the potency to be continuous when their limits and di¡erences are dissolved by ful¢lling their potency to be ruled over by the human form. For Aristotle, then, beings achieve their telos and complete themselves by ful¢lling the kind of continuity that belongs to their nature.31 Yet, the nature of motion remains somewhat di¡erentömotion does not ful¢ll its potency by becoming complete, but nevertheless it too can be said to be because it remains continuous. In his attempt to demonstrate the dependability of motionöthat is to say, the being of motionöand to prove that it admits of being by the fact that it is dependable and ``always or for the most part,'' Aristotle had to show that motion was not haphazard, that it betrayed a regularity, that it is not in¢nite, that it possesses limits that always or for the most part delineate its existence. The limits of motion, the being of motion, the dependability of motion, is assured by its continuity (its sunecheia). Here, we understand that motion becomes ``held together'' in a kind of regularity, which is the same as to say that motion is continuous. Motion does not arise in one place, disappear or stop, and then end somewhere else. Quite to the contrary, motion begins, unfolds within a regular temporality and into and out of a speci¢c place. This is its being, the source of its unity, its identity, its dependability, its regularityö its continuity. Motion can be said to be, because it always or for the most part is continuous. And, as we said earlier, the continuous is the indication that something rules over the being of a being and therefore provides the continuity. As such, motion must be seen to be intimately linked to the being of a being insofar as the motion unique to a being will be the expression of that being's nature, and the expression of how it is held together and presented to the world

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as the kind of being that it is. ``And this form or look,'' Aristotle writes, ``is nature more than the material is. For each thing is meant when it is fully at work, more than when it is potentially. Moreover, a human being comes about from a human being, but not a bed from a bed . . . Therefore nature is the form'' (193 b 8 ¡.). Since nature is a principle of motion, nature itself (qua form) rules and governs the being of a beingöwhich is to sayöthe motion of a being. For beings that are capable of motion, we can say that they express their unique nature by moving in their unique way. As a principle (archeª ) of motion, physis rules over a being's motion in such a way as to provide continuityönot only for the being, but also for its motion. For a being reveals its being and its nature in the way that it moves. Moreover, a being expresses its nature (qua form) in the way that it movesöperhaps therein lies the reason why Aristotle speaks of form (eidos) and logos interchangeably in some places: in this way, we can say that nature is the expression of a being insofar as it rules over its motion. Nature is an archeª of motion. Moreover, nature is an archeª of the continuity of motion and natural beings. Yet, it would seem that, for Aristotle, the continuity and motion of natural beings remains a potency in that being until that potency is ful¢lled. As an ``entelechia of a dunamis, as dunamis,'' motion indicates the bringing of a potential being into its ful¢llment. But we still need to show the origin out of which a being becomes compelled into the ful¢llment of its nature and the source of an individual, primary motion's continuity. Of course, one might protest claiming that we have said that the source of a motion lies in the beings' nature, insofar as nature is an archeª of motion. But what does this say? Does it mean that a being is self-compelled to ful¢ll a potency latent in itself, that something inside the being and because of the being ``turns on'' and begins the unfolding of chemical processes, like the creation of a protein or an enzyme through the activation of a gene? But whence is the gene activated? Whence the process activating the activation of the gene? To pose this question is also, of course, to pose the question of nature as a principle of motion and a principle of continuity of motion; for genes always or for the most part begin, rule over, and conclude the proteins and enzymes that they engage. In the Aristotelian question-frame, the next logical step is to ask from whence do these structures receive their continuity. If nature is a principle of the motion of generation (say, of a human being), then we do not say that the structure and process from which a human unfolds as generation comes from the generated being. No. A child does not initiate the principle of its own generation, although it does harbor the principle and undergo the motion that compels and unfolds a human out of a potency and into a being. A child is pushed, if you will, into the generation of itself by something outside the childönamely, the sperm. Aristotle provides an example in Generation of Animals. Here, the emergence of the child requires two principles: ``the ruling origins of generation would be the female and the male; on the one hand, the male holds the source of motion and generation and, on the other hand, the female holds that of matter'' (716 a 5).32 As the bearer of the womb, the female holds the pure matter out of which some form can then be passively fashioned. The male provides the active and compelling

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sperm that initiates the motion and provides the form which takes up the matter in order to set the child into emergence. Now, unaware of the contribution of female chromosomes, Aristotle considered the female womb to be an example of potency, unable to move or generate movement on its own, but most available for a possible shape provided by the male. It is the male in Aristotle's world that provides the ruling origin of generation; it is the male that provides the continuity of the generation of the child. Yet, the motion that initiates the matter into motion does not ¢rst arise in the male either, but rather the potency for motion will have been bequeathed to the male by a prior male as well. Soul, as a principle of motion and generation, becomes passed from male to male through sperm and harbors within itself the potency to enact the motion of generation even after a being has ful¢lled its potency and is fully at-work as the being it said to be. Hence it is clear both the semen possesses Soul, and that it is Soul, potentially. And there are varying degrees in which it may be potentially that which it is capable of beingöit may be nearer to it or further removed from it . . . So then the cause of this process of formation is not any part of the body, but the external agent which ¢rst set the movement goingöfor of course nothing generates itself, though as soon as it has been formed a thing makes itself grow. (735 a 10 ¡.) Of course, the consequences of such a conception of generation are, on the one hand, that there must be some rigorous ruling origin that bestows continuity to the motion of generation and the beings that undergo it. And also, that no being can be responsible, qua cause, for its own generation. Perhaps, in the example of generation given, his conclusion remains unsurprising. After all, except for replacing the potential metaphysical origin of the motion with one of chance, modern genetics argues essentially the same thing. However, when we consider that generation is only one species of motion, and indeed, a derivative one, then the issue becomes more complicated, since, for Aristotle, it is not only generation that ¢nds its ruling origin outside of itself, but all motion. Toward the beginning of book eight of the Physics, Aristotle reinforces the development of the argument given in Generation of Animals that the motion of any given being (in the former case, generation) is caused by something else. For him, every being in motion was put into that motion by something else. Aristotle argues that among the things that could show themselves as an impasse to such a notion are ensouled beings. After considering the passage above on generation, we might quickly point out that, while soul can be said to be responsible for a certain kind of motionögrowingöafter having been moved to establish itself as a principle of sorts in a body, nevertheless, the soul relies upon the initial thrust that set its activity in motion. Yet this is not the kind of self-motion that Aristotle argues could be a problem for his interpretation. For him, the biggest threat posed by ensouled beings to his notion that every motion is put into motion by something else lies within the ensouled

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being's capacity for volition. ``But the third thing,'' argues Aristotle, referring to beings with soul, ``would seem to be most an impasse, that motion comes to inhere in that within which it was not present before, the thing that happens with ensouled things; for having been at rest beforehand, afterwards the ensouled thing walks, having been moved by nothing outside it, as it seems '' (Physics 253 a 10). When a lion on the plain catches sight of a gazelle, it would appear that nothing outside of it initiated its motion. The observer will not have witnessed anything bumping into the lion to set it into a motion toward the gazelle. Rather, the lion would seem to possess a principle for self-motion. Moreover, when a human sits on a couch, watches an ice cream commercial, and then ¢nds herself rummaging through the refrigerator looking for that pint of Ben and Jerry's, nothing entered the room and pushed her o¡ the couch. It would appear that there had been no outside source for the motion and that the ensouled human being possesses a potency for self-motion. ``But this is false,'' writes Aristotle.33 There was, in fact, an external cause for the motion of the lion and the couch-bound human being: the periechon, or that which one has around one, the surrounding world. ``But this is false. For we always see something moved in the animal, of the parts congenital to it; but the cause of the motion of this is not the animal itself, but perhaps its surroundings'' (253 a 15). In the case of the lion, a gazelle arrived within the surrounding world and the lion was compelled toward it. The gazelle was the cause of the motion from place to place; the touch of the gazelle by any of the potencies for sensuous perception moved the animal into the hunting motion. That kinesis kata topon can be said to be caused by an object in the surrounding world and not by the proximity of two haphazardly colliding beings bespeaks just how foreign and strange Aristotle's motion is in relation to contemporary ways of thinking motion in space. But, also, sensation must be thought di¡erently. Aisthesis traverses distance and spreads throughout place. The lion is touched34 by the gazelle and compelled into motion by this touching (although, to be sure, aisthesis does not contain the potency by which self-motion occursöthat is desire and/or nous).35 Thought on the basis of place (which remains a radically di¡erent spatial relation from empty space), we must say that the sensuous faculty becomes touched by beings in an immediate senseöthis is perhaps why aisthesis cannot be deceived36öso that, for ensouled beings, the sensuous perception of something would seem to be a sort of standing in contiguous place with that being in potency. In order to move an ensouled being as kinesis kata topon, one does not need to provide evidence of a contiguous body in a contiguous place pushing something in energeia. Rather, things lying in the surrounding world push and pull ensouled beings to them ¢rst in potency and perhaps subsequently in act through the ensouled being's faculty of desire and/or intellectual grasp (nous). Thus, for Aristotle, the archeª of what is called ``self-motion'' lies within the surrounding world and moves the ensouled being toward it or away from it, appealing to its faculty of desire. In addition, the preservation of the continuity of this particular motion too must arise in the periechon, qua archeª, securing the being of the motion as ``hunting the prey'' (in the case of the lion). As such, motion

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according to place admits of no self-motion, properly speaking. Yet, Aristotle goes on to provoke even more surprise by claiming that even motions like thinking (dianoia) ¢nd their original thrust in the periechon. ``So nothing prevents, but it is perhaps rather a necessity, that many motions come to be present in the body by means of the surroundings (periechontos), while some of these set in motion thinking and desire, which then set the whole animal into motion'' (253 a 17). Far from an activity divorced and separated from nature, humans are urged into thinking by nature herself; in the surrounding world lies any number of compelling beings, the sensuous contact with which thrusts thinking into motion. Moreover, far from a thinkerly state in which humans provide order to a disordered cosmos, in the Physics, human thinking maintains its own order (qua motion) through its connection to the ordering and preserving power of the continuity of nature. Nature bequeaths order to human thinking by bestowing upon it a continuity and logical order. Perhaps logical order is nothing other than nature's preserving force at-work, pushing the soul into thinking of and through natural beings in such a way that the thinking is ``held together'' in accordance to the continuity provided by nature. The most immediate consequences of such thinking would be a certain broadening of what must become named as ``logical.'' Reason (logos) does not assert itself over nature in such a reading, but rather, by its very nature, logos accompanies physis through the process of unfolding and disclosing nature's continuity to itself. But we will have more opportunity to re£ect on the logic of the periechon in the chapter ``On the Nature of Reason.'' There, we must further pose the implicit question raised above insofar as it relates to logosöif no being can be responsible for its own movement, then how must we think rational observation in Aristotle and, indeed, all of the activities employing reasonöfrom what in the surrounding world are we pushed into a¡ecting and, indeed, e¡ecting37 the comportments of episteªmeª, phronesis, and justice, among the rest? But, for now, we must continue to think through Aristotle's presentation of continuity as the indication of a being's being. Speci¢cally, we need to turn to the issue raised by the prior development. That is to say, if a being derives its motion and its continuity from another, and if there is no proper self-motion or self-continuity, from where does all motion and continuity come? At the end of the Physics, Aristotle o¡ers an answer to this question by considering the most prior motion of all motion: the circular motion of the heavens. The conclusion of the text as a whole is that motion indeed admits of being. Moreover, motion admits of being because of its continuity. In fact, since nature is a principle and cause for the good, motion is necessary in order for beings of nature to ful¢ll their good potency. Yet, for Aristotle, every motionö whether generation, alteration, or motion from place to placeöreceives its compelling thrust and, therefore, its being as continuity from one motion; which is to say, all motions are derived from one motion: circular motion.38 Aristotle indicates circular motion's primacy at the beginning of his discussion of the ¢rst motion in the second half of book seven. In order to set up the hierarchical structure of motions, he argues that motion from place to place (of

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which circular motion is an example) must be considered prior and more primordial and he o¡ers the ground of his claim: ``For as with other things, so also with motion, ¢rst may be meant in more than one way. A thing is called more primary if other things will not be when it is not, while it can be without the others, or if it is earlier in time, or in consequence of thinghood'' (260 a 20). Perhaps initially surprisingly, Aristotle lays claim to kinesis kata topon as the most prior of the motions. But would one not require ¢rst a generation of something or an alteration of the something in order for the kosmos to begin to o¡er motion from place to place? Aristotle thinks not. For him, since he thinks that motion always is (260 a 5), generation and alteration already imply motion of place. If generation and destruction are ``a combination or a separation'' (260 a 11), this implies kinesis kata topon. If a thing causing alteration must push the being undergoing alteration to alter, then the thing causing alteration must ``at one time be nearer to the altered and at another time farther away'' (260 a 4). Moreover, with additional re£ection, we can see that, if the motion of the spheres sets everything into motion, then motion from place to place (which includes circular motion) must be prior. Indeed, not one of the other motions can come to be without this prior motion. The ¢rst motion serves as the archeª of all other motions: it rules over and confers its continuity upon any other motion, shaping the very being of other motions and perhaps also lending its continuity to the beings that come to be in motion. Moreover, while I will not here work out the intricate details of the relation between the unmoved mover and circular motion, we must say that circular motion receives its motive force from the unmoved mover. But not in such a way that the spheres are explicitly pushed into motion by a mover. Rather, the mover remains unmoved, without pathos. But what is the character of this relationöthis a¡ection of the spheres for the mover and the lack of a¡ection on the part of the mover? The relation betrays a passion of the spheres for the unmoved mover. De Caelo describes these spheres in terms of animals, as ensouled: ``We have already decided that these functions are found in whatever contains a principle of motion, and that the heaven is alive (empsuxos) and contains a principle of motion.''39 Moreover, Metaphysics speaks of the sphere's love for the unmoved mover as the origin of circular motion (1072 b 3). If nothing else, we can see a continuity between these two texts, insofar as a prerequisite for the capacity of love would be a soul. The spheres must be ensouled like an animal in order to desire and love the unmoved mover. In this way, we are presented with the rather sad conclusion that the unmoved mover remains aloof and unmoved by its lover. As such, we must say that all motion is therefore a result of an unrequited love of a lover (the outer spheres) for their beloved (the unmoved mover). Thus, the origins of nature would appear to be an everlasting breaking heart. After considering the most prior of all motions and arguing that all motions thought broadly owe their very being to motion from place to place, Aristotle considers the possible ways that motion can show itself. He concludes that all motion occurs as either rectilinear or circular and, further, there can be a combination of the two. Of course, as the reader no doubt recalls, circular motion

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will prove to be the kind of motion that is most primary and that which rules over the other motions. Having been taken to task over the centuries for his conclusions regarding rectilinear motion,40 Aristotle's presentation of motion along a straight line no longer holds much currency in today's science. As is well known, he thought that a being thrown up in the air, would pause for a moment, breaking the continuity of the motion. Galileo has since shown this assumption to be incorrect. However, Aristotle's principal argument regarding motion on a straight line was to show that it is not continuous41 and thus can neither be the source of continuity of motion nor the being of motion. First, rectilinear motion cannot go on continuously, if we mean by continuous suneches haplos. For this sort of continuity, you need circular motion. Moreover, since Aristotle is looking for a motion that can serve as the archeª, he needs to ¢nd one with a singular cause. Yet rectilinear motion has at least two causes. On the one hand, the rock thrown into the air rises due to a motive cause of the thrower, but it falls in accordance with its own earthy material the causality of which brings beings consisting of such material down. As such, motion along a straight line will not be simply one and, for this reason too, it cannot be the source of continuity. Rather, the source of continuity is circular motion. On the one hand, it is continuous in the sense of being everlasting. On the other hand, ``motion on a circle will be one and continuous, since nothing impossible follows from that'' (264 b 10). Finally, we have the more curious characteristic of a circular motion that was previously reputed to be impossible; namely, motion on a circle is complete. ``That circular motion is the primary kind of change of place is evident,'' writes Aristotle, And [motion] in a circle is more primary than the straight, since it is more simple and complete (teleios) . . . But motion on a ¢nite straight line, if it turns back on itself, is composite and two motions, but if it does not turn back, is incomplete and destructible. But by nature, by de¢nition, and by time, the complete is more primary than the incomplete, and the indestructible than the destructible. (265 a 10 ¡.) Of the motions, circular motion remains the only motion which displays completeness. As such, we can immediately intuit that a complete motion, a motion that ful¢lls itself to the end, must be that motion that lends continuity to all other motions of whatever sort or origin in the kosmos.42 After all, can anything incomplete serve as a measure for something else? Yet, circular motion serves as a measure of motion, for Aristotle. ``Because circular motion is the measure of motions, it must be primary (for all things are measured by the ¢rst thing), and because it is primary, it is the measure of the rest'' (265 b 10). But, where do we ¢nd an example of circular motion? Is circular motion some metaphysical conception that Aristotle has placed beyond the kosmos as a logical holding place for physis? No. One need only walk outside at night and look up at the sky. Circular motion, the preserving and securing force of beings, the motion that lends continuity to the being of all beings in the kosmos, can enter the realm of the

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sensuously perceived on any clear evening. That circular motion serves as the ultimate source of the blooming of the rose and the falling of a snow£ake to earth might seem odd. Yet it might seem even more surprising to consider that, for Aristotle, the ultimate origin of thought and the security and dependability behind thought's contemplative, logical, and practical achievements is the circular motion of the kosmos. Thought, like any motion, ¢nds its measure in the circular, complete, and everlasting motion of the spheres. As with any being or motion, it would seem that, when at its best, thought somehow relates to the circular motion of the kosmos. For we moderns, I would argue, Aristotle provides an example wherein motion and becoming (and its archeª, nature) are not second-class citizens in being, they are not imitations of being, but indeed, motion (and its archeª, nature) here is precisely the condition of the possibility of being, in the traditional understanding of that term. Motion secures and preserves beings and, indeed, indicates a being's nature. As such, human nature would need to be viewed as a preserving and securing archeª, an archeª which rules over that motion (or motions) which is unique to human beings. Of course, this implies that those comportments that are seen to belong most exquisitely to human beings, those comportments that would appear to underwrite and subtend what is meant by ``human nature,'' ¢nd their preserving origin in the continuous motion of the kosmos. As mentioned earlier, certain activities of the human being (contemplation, for example) are said to be without motion, but rather should be distinguished from beings in motion as ``beings-at-work'' since beings in motion are incomplete, while beings-at-work are complete. While I will not pursue the following suggestion in this chapter, allow me to o¡er a premonition of a later argument by proposing that, in order to understand what it means to be at-work, qua energeia, yet also not to be in motion, perhaps certain human activities must be thought through Aristotle's conception of circular motionöwhich is, just as energeia, a complete activity. In book nine of the Metaphysics, Aristotle distinguishes between being-at-work (energeia) and motion. All motion except circular motion, as we have mentioned above in interpreting its de¢nition, cannot be complete in the proper senseöAristotle o¡ers the following examples: if I am learning a singular something, I will not have learned it; if I am walking somewhere, I will not have walked there. But the circular motion of an energeia is complete: for, if I am living, I will have lived; and if I am contemplating, I will have contemplated. These latter are examples of being-at-work and, as is evident from their description, Aristotle considers them to be complete. Now, even though I will not presently pursue the foregoing suggestion regarding human being-at-work (energeia), nevertheless, it seems to me that they have to be thought through the condition of their possibility: circular motion.43 With these considerations of human motion, we have reached a point in the argument in which the exquisitely human natureöand the motion for which it is an archeªöcan begin to be brought into a more focused relief. Having already set forth an interpretation of nature as a principle of motion, in the following sections of this chapter, I will begin our foray into human nature; which is to

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say, I will commence to consider the kind of motion that belongs to the human which indicates its nature: logos. At the beginning of the chapter, we spoke of the human activity of de¢ning as a kind of motion by which humans grasp hold of a being in accordance with its nature, in contrast to an awareness of a being by our nature. Of course, the nature of logos fully subtends our capacity to speak of motion in a de¢ning way, thus, I want to initiate a more explicit handling of the matter of the book by o¡ering a brief interpretation of Aristotle's view of de¢nition. On my reading, de¢nition is precisely an example of human discovery, insofar as it is the articulation (logos) of the unique, single noetic perception (nous) of a being. Yet we have the additional problem of addressing reason's relation to intellectual perception; for Aristotle argues in several places that nous is without logos. If, in fact, nous is radically without logos, then we might wonder whether a de¢nition (a logos of immediate discovery of a being through noetic perception) is possible on Aristotelian grounds at all. Consequently, in what follows, I wish to o¡er an account of the quite original Aristotelian understanding of de¢nition. However, before I can do that, it would be important to provide an interpretation of nous as well as an interpretation of the relation between intellectual perception and reason, since, I would argue, it is precisely in his understanding of a de¢nition that Aristotle's insistence regarding the separation of logos and nous is put to the test. In section three, I begin by presenting a interpretation of nous so that, in the ¢nal section of this chapter, I am able to provide a more coherent account of what I take to be a primary example of the occurrence of Aristotelian discovery: the vision of the archeª in logos, a de¢nition.

3. Speaking of nous: On the relation of logos and nous in Aristotle In book six of his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle o¡ers a rather brief account of the intellectual virtue nous as that hexis in which human beings perceive the archai of beings (1141 a 9).44 Here, Aristotle argues that, in human beings, nous remains the only possibility for the human to experience the unique disclosure of a being in accordance with its own nature, as opposed to the disclosure of a being in accordance with the generic experiences provided by our human linguistic and discursive nature. As such nous is aneu logou, without logos; to discover the source of some being, nous does not rely on the deliberative activities human beings perform with their generic and universalizing logoi. We do not discover the ruling origins of a being in the comportment of episteªmeª, since the archeª enters into the episteªmeª without question, or assumed, in the linguistic and rational work undertaken in scienti¢c knowledge; and we cannot perceive the archai of beings in the a¡ection of sophia, since, insofar as sophia involves episteªmeª, it employs syllogistic demonstrations to perform its work (and archai enter into demonstrative logoi assumed) (81 b 1 and 90 b 24 ¡.).45 Clearly, phroneªsis with its discursive and deliberative foundations is not that comportment in which humans perceive archai, phroneªsis too takes for granted the archai of the beings with which it

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concerns itself in order to deliberate and employ logos for the sake of some decisive telos. Thus, discovery in Aristotle will happen in the psychological mode of nous, nous without rational, syllogistic, apodictic or deliberative exercise. Yet Aristotle provides other passages which complicate our understanding of the nous^logos relation in ways that display a more intimate connection between the two, at least in the case of the human being. For example, in De Anima's gammaöa fairly authoritative chapter on the question of nous in the corpusö Aristotle repeats what he has said about proairesis in Nicomachean Ethics zeta, saying that ``it is obvious that . . . desire and intellect cause motion . . .'' Yet he adds the following: ``but this is intellect (nous) reasoning (logizomenos) for the sake of something and the practical; it di¡ers from the theoretical by its end '' (433 a 14).46 Thus, at the very least, here we have an articulation of one kind of activity of human nous that is spoken of as reasoning. Yet the abyss of separation between nous and logos is further bridged by another passage later in the same chapter, a passage in which Aristotle will precisely speak of logos and nous interchangeably. Aristotle employs another philospheme from the Ethics to describe a certain kind of principle animating human motion: akrasia. ``But since desires come to be opposite to one another, which happens whenever logos and impulses (epithumia) are opposed, and comes about in beings that have perception of time (for nous urges one to resist epithumia on account of the future, while epithumia urges one to resist logos on account of what is immediate . . . )'' (433 b 6 ¡.). In this passage, Aristotle employs the classic problem of akrasis (desiring something for immediate grati¢cation even though one knows delaying grati¢cation will bring a better future) in a way that clearly exhibits a certain interchangability between the terms logos and nous, further bridging the radical divide between the two in human awareness. What does this mean for our interpretation of the way humans become aware of the archai of beings, of the awareness of something in accordance with its own nature? One might conclude from the apparent contradiction underlying the accounts in these two texts that Aristotle is unreliable in his account of nous47 and its relation to logos. However, I want to o¡er a reading of nous which resolves the contradiction in light of Aristotle's famous distinction between the two ways that humans can be aware of something. Human beings have the potential to be aware of something in accordance with human nature and they have the potential to be aware of something in accordance with that something's nature. Human nature and the awareness it a¡ords, I will argue, is crucially grounded in logos. Human beings always move from an awareness of something in accordance with logos before they are aware of something by its own nature. The ultimate vision of the archeª in nous, qua being aware of something by its own nature, I will argue, is indeed aneu logou, without logos, but I will show that the very unique idea of logos that governs Aristotle's conception of the human will play a fundamental role in placing the human being within the comportment by which nous can receive the form at all; for, on my reading, Aristotle's nous displays a passive or pathetic (qua pathos) nature that remains the only possible noetic disposition for the human being.

54 A.

Aristotle and Rational Discovery On Being and Thinking

In reading nous in the works of Aristotle, we perhaps overly determine our interpretations of this important phenomenon of the soul with modern conceptions of ``mind,'' ``cognition'' or ``consciousness.''48 Setting aside the question of whether we even fully understand what we mean by these terms, it nevertheless seems important to me to suspend our presumptions regarding any equation of nous and modern notions of mind. If nous plays an important role in the activity of discovery in human beings, then we need to begin by o¡ering an account of it. Thus, in this ¢rst section, I will present a (by necessity, somewhat abbreviated) interpretation of nous drawn from the Aristotelian texts; for the meaning of nous is anything but clear and consistent in either the literature surrounding it or in the Aristotelian corpus itself. My interpretation will focus primarily on a few di¤cult passages from On the Soul, book three, and Metaphysics, book twelve, passages which articulate a notion of nous that remains quite foreign to anything that we might otherwise call mind. In fact, we will consider Aristotle's parallel language of describing nous with the same words he uses to describe aistheªsis. Even more, my commentary on these sections will depend upon what I expect to be a rather unique contribution to what is often called active-nous in the extant literature, a contribution which allies Aristotelian nous with that famous Parmenidean fragment: ``for it is the same both to think and to be.''49 With this preliminary work clarifying the phenomenon of nous, I will prepare the context out of which we will be able to o¡er a reading of the nous^logos relation in Aristotle. In chapter four of book three, On the Soul, Aristotle begins to consider the intellectual performance of the soul with an articulation of nous in a way that distances his understanding of intellectual activity very far from the modern ``mind'': he speaks of its similarity and dissimilarity to aistheªsis.50 This is certainly not an idiosyncratic instance; also expressed in the Nicomachean Ethics,51 Aristotle rea¤rms here that nous has a certain structural symmetry with aistheªsis. The reader will recall that, in On the Soul, book two, Aristotle quite clearly understands aistheªsis to be a pathos. That is to say, Aristotle thinks that perception involves being-moved rather than actively moving something else. ``Perception follows from being moved and acted upon . . .'' (416 b 36). In fact, Aristotle argues that the pathetic nature of aistheªsis is precisely why there is no perception of the perceiving organs themselves: ``it is clear that the perceptive power does not have being as an energeia but only as a potency, and this is why the sense organ is not perceived'' (417 a 8). In this somewhat problematic articulation of the relation, we could as well substitute poien and paskein for energeia and dunamis. Yet Aristotle follows these observations with a correction and a further quali¢cation of aistheªsis. Rather than conceiving of poien and paskein as energeia and dunamis, he now suggests that we think of perception in-potency when, for example, the eyes are closed, but we should think of perception at-work when, for example, the eyes are open and are being acted upon or being moved by that which is drawing the gaze of perception. So, we see that, as a pathos, the soul is

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sensuously shaped by its encounter with the world without itself setting the things it perceives into motion. Such a description reminds one of (and, in fact, further elucidates) the much commentated and debated passage52 of book two, chapter twelve regarding perception: ``aistheªsis,'' Aristotle writes, ``is receptive of the forms of perceptible things without their material, as wax is receptive of the design of a ring without the iron or gold and takes up the golden or bronze design, but not as gold or bronze'' (424 a 18). In light of the above observations, we are to understand that, since aistheªsis must be thought as a pathos of the human soul, the perceptible thing/things move aistheªsis into its activity. Moreover, here in chapter twelve this curious activity of perception is described. Aristotle illustrates the pathetic activity of aistheªsis through the language of ``reception'' (to dektikon). Yet aistheªsis passively receives the forms (eideª ) of perceptible things like wax takes on the shape of a ring. That is to say, the pathetic act of perception is a certain kind of being-moved or being-transformed by the perceptible thing. Aistheªsis becomes shaped by the form of the perceptible thing. Aristotle's language is even stronger: perception becomes the perceptible thing without the matter. ``For perceiving is a way of being acted upon, in which what acts makes another thing, which is potentially such as it, be of that attribute that the former has actively'' (424 a). In this way, then, perception becomes what it perceives. It becomes the perceptible thing in potency. This is not to say that the sense organ becomes actually the attribute it perceives, say, hot or white. We must remember that for Aristotle there are two ways that physei-beings can be: dunamis and energeia. The perceptible thing, ``white,'' formally works upon aistheªsis, shaping it without the material. As such, Aristotle thinks that perception really does become white, but in potency, not in actuality. While actuality (energeia) certainly becomes privileged in the corpus,53 potency nevertheless is, as a way that something can be.54 And it is through this relation of dunamis and energeia that Aristotle understands aistheªsis. One might suggest that perception resembles a middle-voice phenomenon, similar to teaching and learning,55 in which there is only one activity taking placeöone activity governing the experience of two di¡erent beings. In the case of teaching and learning, knowledge is happening. Knowledge is the work that gathers the teacher and learner together and de¢nes the relation. In the case of aistheªsis, the perceptible attributes bestow their work upon perception, they in-form the sense organs of their work (energeia) and it is this work that governs and shapes the perceiver. On this reading, aistheªsis displays itself as a kind of primary matter of perceptible forms (attributes): passive, unformed, and open to becoming (in potency) whatever meaningful perceptible form is capable of working upon it. While Aristotle, against certain prevalent theories (427 a 20 ¡.), insists that nous is not the same as perception, there are certain important structural similarities toward which I will now point in order to understand more clearly the phenomenon of nous. Even though nous is not the same as perception, I would argue that it more clearly resembles perception, as Aristotle understands it, than what we more commonly call thinking or consciousness. It was mentioned above that Aristotle points toward this structural symmetry in Nicomachean

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Ethics, but in On the Soul, chapter four of book three, Aristotle more clearly describes the phenomenon of nous in the light of our above observation of aistheªsis. As far as similarities go, like perception, Aristotle asserts the pathetic character of nous: If thinking is just as perceiving, it would be either some way of being acted upon by the intelligible thing, or something else of that sort. Therefore it must be without attributes but receptive (dektikon) of the form, and in potency such as it is, but not to be it; and it must be similar so that as the power of perception is to the perceptible things, so is the intellect to the intelligible things. (429 a 13) Whereas aistheªsis is acted upon by the perceptible thing (forms of sensuous attributes), nous for Aristotle is acted upon by the intelligible thing (which is to say: form or primary ousia). But what is the character of this reception? We can glean the following from the above quoted passage. (1) Like perception, nous is described as a pathos. (2) In addition to its pathetic character, Aristotle adds that nous must be itself completely without attributes but receptive of the form and capable of becoming the noetic being in potency without the material. Just as we saw in perception's relation to perceptible things, nous must be said to be the beings it intuits in potency. That is to say, nous does not itself have any attributes; rather, it remains malleable by the activity of the noetic thing that acts upon itöAristotle understands noetic perception to be the transformation of nous into the noetic thing without the material. Nous is what acts upon it. So what does this tell us about nous? Aristotle provides another argument that could easily lead us in a wrong direction. He writes that nous should not be considered as something ``mixed'' with the body. However, I would argue that this quali¢cation lies not in the fact that nous is some extra-terrestrial, metaphysical capacity granted human beings, but rather the quali¢cation is needed because we are unable to locate nous within the body: nous does not have attributes, it does not have an organ, it does not have shape, except as the form in potency of what it perceives. Nous is the most primordially open part of the soul. It can become any intelligible thing that works upon it. If there is such a thing as primary matter in Aristotle, from this description it would seem that, rather than some sort of lowly material substrate, nousöthe highest potency in the cosmosöis a kind of primary matter. After all, nous can potentially become all forms, for Aristotle: ``it is well said that the soul is a place of forms, except that this is not the whole soul but the noetic soul, and it is not the forms in its entelechia, but in potency'' (On the Soul, trans. Sachs, 429 a 28). Moreover, (3) in addition to lacking attributes, or shape, or organs, nous lacks a nature (429 a 22). What does this mean? I want to suggest that here Aristotle means by ``nature'' what he means when he speaks of animal natures: that is to say, the speci¢c activity a particular animal performs in order to be what it is. For human beings, that activity involves logos, so that we can say that the activity of logos is that activity which distinguishes human beings from other beings: logos is human nature. Yet, nous has no nature . . . ``except as potency'' (429 a 22).

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I would argue that it becomes the strictly formal nature of those beings that it intellects or intuits. The nature of a being is its archeª, its principle of motion.56 As possessing a nature only in potency, nous betrays an openness toward encounterable beings to become appropriated by their nature.57 So far, the semantic proximity of nous to aistheªsis appears quite close. In particular, both are acted upon, are patheª, by their corresponding beings in such a way as to be those beings in potency. The activity or primary work that animates the perceptible and intelligible beings also animates and procreates within the corresponding parts of the soul. In the case of ousia, moreover, nous takes on even the nature of a being in potency. Which is to say, nous is itself formed by the archeª of the being it intuits. The foregoing interpretation of nous as a pathos would also seem to be con¢rmed by Metaphysics lambda; for, in that text, Aristotle reserves the power of the so called active-nous (noein) for the unmoved mover. Aristotle writes: Now concerning nous there are certain impasses, for it seems to be the most divine of the things that are manifest to us . . . If it does think, but something else has power over it, then, since it is not thinking but potency that is the ousia of it, it could not be the best independent thing, for it is on account of its act of thinking (noein) that its place of honor belongs to it. (1074 b 15) The most divine of things in the cosmos is, of course, the unmoved mover. It remains the most divine because of its activity. Through the sheer beauty of its activity that has been translated as thinking itself thinking, it moves the entire cosmos. The spheres witness this divine activity and are erotically compelled into everlasting motion by it (1072 b ¡.), which, in turn, sets the entire cosmos into every other kind of activity (energeia) and motion (kineªsis) (whether of place to place, alteration, or growing and withering). Moreover, it is moved into its noetic activity by nothing other than itself. If the unmoved mover were moved by any of the other things in the cosmos, it would somehow be shaped by or under the power of the things to which it grants being through its activity. Thus, it must be pushed into noetic activity by nothing other than its own activity, which is noeªsis. The form and nature of the unmoved mover is itself pure noeªsis, which shapes and appropriates its nous. And still, whether the thinghood of it is a nous or noeªsis, what does it noei? For this is either itself or something else, and if it is something else, either always the same one or di¡erent . . . If it is not noeªsis but a dunamis [in the sense that we experience nous58] it is reasonable to suppose that the continuation of its thinking would be wearisome; and next, it is clear that something else would then be more honorable than nous, namely the noumenon. Therefore, what it noei is itself, if it is the most excellent thing, and its noeªsis is a noeªseoªs noeªsis. (1074 b 22) Even the noesis of the unmoved mover is in a way pushed into its existence by precisely some being, but that being is nothing other than itself. The unmoved

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mover is compelled into thinking the being of itself thinking: which is to say, its pathetic nous takes on the form of itself which engenders the transformation of pathetic nous by the form of the unmoved mover itself. The archeª that governs the activity of the unmoved mover shapes the pathetic nous of the unmoved mover, engendering the very same activity in nous. In this sense, the notion of self-noeªsis means something like: the unmoved mover ``thinks'' its primary activity, it thinks its being; it intellectually perceives its own nature by precisely becoming aware of itself by its own nature. Yet, at the same time, we must say that, since nous becomes what it perceives, this self-awareness is also a beingitself of the unmoved mover: its activity (its being, its ousia) is the same as what it ``thinks.'' The nous of the unmoved mover becomes what the unmoved mover already is. Yet how does the active principle of nous show itself in the phenomenal world (which is to say, the world in motion under the spheres)? If human souls are equipped only with the faculty of nous which displays itself as a pathos, then in what way, if any, does the active principle function? Chapter ¢ve of book four of On the Soul o¡ers a suggestion. The chapter begins with an assertion about the work of ``all nature.'' Given that the principle of potency in beings does not belong to the unmoved mover,59 I want to suggest that by ``nature'' here, Aristotle means precisely those beings that are both in potency and at work (dunamis and energeia)öa way of being that does not belong to the unmoved mover. Thus, the topic of discussion (the relation of the so-called active nous and passive nous) seems to include human souls and not just ``God.'' Aristotle begins by comparing the principles of natural beings to those of the soul: In all nature one thing is the material for each kind (this is what is in potency all the particular things of that kind), but it is something else that is the causal and productive thing by which all of them are formed . . . it is necessary in the soul too that these distinct aspects be present; the one sort is intellect by becoming all things, the other sort by forming all things. (430 a 10 ¡.) Just as with enformed beings, nous has a principle of dunamis and a principle of energeia. On the one hand, nous, as we have already discussed, has the potency, qua pathos, to become all things (all forms). On the other hand, there is a nous that forms all things (all forms). Moreover, the so-called active nous is separate (choªristos) (430 a 18) and it does not possess any sumbebekoi, since it is the primary ousia of a being, the primary activity that animates a being in accordance with its nature (430 a 19). Now how does this activity relate to nous qua pathos? In an e¡ort to articulate this relation, I would like to draw upon a suggestion made by Apostle for a di¡erent purpose.60 Apostle is concerned about showing how ``active intellect'' can always be active, even though humans clearly are not always actively thinking. He suggests that perhaps Aristotle means that, as a cause of nature, the active nous engenders the form in the passive nous, which is itself not always thinking. I want to appropriate this structure in order to articulate my reading of the activity of nous in the physis of those beings who are as both

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dunamis and energeia, both potency and at-work. In light of our earlier observation of the noesis of the unmoved mover, I suggest that we read the being of a being (its to ti en einai) as the active-noetic principle. In a certain respect, the ousia of the being under inquiry and the active-nous are the same. The being of the being under inquiry is ruled over by the very same archeª that shapes and rules over my passive-nous. The to ti en einai of a being and nous at-work need to be thought together here. For Aristotle, being might be said to be nous at-work in a certain respect: a gathered continuous activity which engenders itself within nous-in-potency in the soul. In a way, then, nous-at-work is the thinghood of the independent thing (the ousia of ousia)61 which engenders itself in the nous-inpotency of the human, say, inquiring into the ousia of the other being. As such, nous is not the principle of my identity (that ``thinking'' which expresses my inner nature) but rather it is the principle (archeª ) of the other being's identity (its ousia) which has inscribed itself upon me and set me into noetic activity. And in keeping with Physics theta, this would be the way that one can be pushed into thinking by something outside of oneself; for, in that text, Aristotle writes that even the activities of desiring and thinking ¢nd their origin in the surrounding world.62 At the same time, this would bring Parmenides and Aristotle closer together, if, indeed, thinking and being here are the same. B.

The Path of Inquiry and Human Nature

In the foregoing section, we have o¡ered a reading of Aristotle's remarks about the function of nous. As a guide for our analysis, we have located our observations alongside Aristotle's ubiquitous imperative for inquiry: in this activity a human being moves from an awareness of an other being by human nature to an awareness by its own nature. Within our introduction to the topic, we read many examples where Aristotle apparently employs the terms logos and nous interchangeably. While I do not think that Aristotle interprets logos and nous as one and the same in his work on discovery, I do think that these examples help to show that, at least in human beings, reason and intellect work together in order to achieve the awareness of something according to its own nature.63 On my reading, logos plays an important role in placing human beings within the comportment by which they can noetically perceive (or, better, receive) the form of a being by that being's own nature. As we have seen above, ``receiving the form'' means that our noetic faculty becomes shaped and molded in accordance with the archeª of the noetically perceived being; nous is open to the nature or form (the unique principle of motion) of the other being such that it will become that other being in potency. While I will not provide an exhaustive account here of the very problematic ways that Aristotle di¡erentiates human beings from other animals, I would like to suggest that one of the more exquisite features of the uniquely human nature is its potency not only to be aware of the world in accordance with human nature, but also to be aware of something by that something's own nature. That is to say, normally, human beings relate to the world through the structure of their unquestioned and unre£ective cultural

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expectations and norms (what we have found articulated elsewhere64 in Aristotle as the prouparchousa gnoªsis or ``already governing awareness'')öa structure of endoxa into which we are always already born and which normally shapes our relationship to the world, to others, and even to ourselves. This prouparchousa gnoªsis is, of course, part of our nature as logos-bearing beings, since cultural expectations, norms, and habits are born of, cultivated by, and maintained by logos for Aristotle. As argued in Chapter One, I think that when Aristotle writes of being aware of something in accordance with our nature, qua human beings, he means being aware of something in accordance with this prouparchousa gnoªsis. Yet human beings have another comportment for awareness: we have the capacity to be placed in a position to receive the form of the being under inquiry. The power to turn our psycheª out of and away from this everyday awareness of the world toward a noetic perception belongs to human nature, qua the rational animal. The turn toward a being in the form of a noetic perception is, therefore, structurally the same as breaking away from the reductive awareness of beings in which my awareness of them is structured according to their usefulness for me or their ¢t into my cultural horizon and toward a richer awareness based upon the nature of the other being. In noetic perception, human nature is in a certain sense displaced by the nature of the other being. When I am genuinely ``thinking,'' qua noeªsis, I am inhabited by the other being which I am thinking. After all, Aristotle says that my noetic faculty becomes the other being in potency by being shaped by its archeª. Whereas when I am relating to a being in accordance with my nature, it is merely interpreted through the grid of the prouparchousa gnoªsis. The turning motion from an awareness according to our nature toward a noetic perception is marked by a sort of disengagement through critical engagement;65 for, in order to achieve an awareness of something by its nature, Aristotle insists that we engage the endoxa of the prouparchousa gnoªsis.66 Rather than bracket what culture and tradition have had to say about beings, Aristotle thinks it is important to engage them; for these endoxa that make up our prouparchousa gnoªsis are the reason we can see the beings under investigation at all.67 While certainly descriptive, this would not be the same as a phenomenological reduction. In order to unhinge ourselves from the everyday awareness of a being, we must critically engage the endoxa that have introduced us to the being. And further, in the noetic perception of Aristotle, the reception of the form is, as we have seen, totally pathetic. This is not to say that it requires no active work on our part to achieve it. I will show that this work is actually reached through rational exerciseödialogically engaging the structure of logos that has formed one. But the reception itself needs to unfold in the exquisite comportment of nous as we have described it above. Let us take as an example the two ways in which we can be aware of a tree. We may be aware of a tree in an everyday way without having performed the intellectual activity and research to determine precisely what it is by its own nature. I may pass by a certain tree and ``know'' it as it relates to my culture and my experience with it: perhaps I know it as ``shading the house from heat'' or as ``dropping leaves on the lawn'' or perhaps as being ``sacred to some

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god'' or ``the o¤cial tree of such and such country.'' In other words, we may pass by this tree without ever having asked the question: precisely what kind of tree is this and what makes it a tree anyway? Subsequent to a¡ecting this questioning comportment we undertake a certain kind of deliberative exercise with the history of endoxa about trees and this sort of research places us in a position to become aware of the tree in accordance with its own nature, not simply in accordance with our everyday experience of the tree. Nous is placed in a position to be able to receive the form of a being in accordance with that being's nature, which is to say that nous, as a potency, becomes what that being is in potency through the intuition of its archeª. The nature of the tree inhabits me; its archeª has been planted in nous.68 Allow me one further textual reference in order to elucidate this displacement of our nature in the activity of contemplation. For this observation, I will depart from our interpretation of On the Soul momentarily in order to draw upon the remarks on contemplation in the Nicomachean Ethics. At chapter seven of book six, Aristotle distinguishes sophia from phroneªsis. Here, Aristotle situates the distinction in the orientation of the knowledge associated which each: phroneªsis is a comportment oriented toward making good decisions for the sake of my human life. I employ my prouparchousa gnoªsis, my governing cultural expectations and norms, to the particulars of a given situation in order to make the best possible decision that will lead to my and my community's £ourishing. Insofar as my local, human £ourishing is the goal of this comportment, ethics and politics cannot be the highest science, writes Aristotle;69 for ``the human being is not the highest being in the cosmos.''70 The goal of phroneªsis, as it is here articulated, remains within the orientation of human nature; it lies circumscribed within speci¢c human concerns. We might suggest that it is through phroneªsis that we are best able to cultivate and secure our nature as human beings. Yet phroneªsis does not exhaust human nature. There belongs also to human nature sophia, which seems utterly crucial to human nature as well, insofar as it is a comportment by which humans are able to step out of their nature in an almost sublime way. Aristotle wrote that ethics and politics cannot be the highest science, precisely because humans are not the highest beings in the cosmos; ``there are also other things that are much more divine in their nature than a human being, such as, most visibly the things ( phainomena) out of which the cosmos is composed.''71 Our capacity to show ourselves in the comportment of sophia is precisely the breaking out of those modes having strictly to do with the cultivation and preservation of our own human wellbeingöour own humanocentrismöin order to be open to the visibility of the glittering edges of the cosmos. In opening ourselves to the radically other nature of the stars, for instance, we gain a certain awareness of the insigni¢cance of human a¡airs. In this respect, the reader will no doubt recall Nietzsche's tale of truth, in On Truth and Lies in an Extra Moral Sense, in which he writes of the greater work of the cosmos as a whole which holds little regard for human beings and their ``knowing.'' Despite all of our human technological and artistic achievements, when the sun dies in the spectacular display of an exploding star, swallowing the entire solar system and

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ending any resemblance of a ``system'' of rotating planets, it will be as if nothing human had ever happened. Indeed, there will have been no human beings. The awareness of the insigni¢cance of human a¡airs in light of the cosmological £ux might be said to be a kind of displacement of human nature. Positing the question ``what are the stars by their own nature'' initiates this displacement and secures the comportment by which we may step out of our everyday awareness of things in order to begin to be disposed toward beings (in this case the stars) by their own nature. In this way, then, a being already present (prouparchousa) in my meaninghorizon (gnoªsis as a certain surrounding world of logoi) becomes brought into question. And the way from this everyday awareness of the being to a noetic perception of the archeª of the being required logos; for the logoi of endoxa not only introduce me to and o¡er meaning to the beings in my surrounding world, but they also provide the rational object (endoxa) which must be critically engaged, since it is through this engagement that I will be placed in a position to receive the form. At least two questions remain. On the one hand, how does Aristotle articulate the uniquely human noetic nature, if it is to be understood as limited by logos? And, on the other hand, what example of rational discovery does Aristotle o¡er to indicate this relation between logos and nous? In the following section, I will seek to answer both of these questions through an account of Aristotelian de¢nition.

4.

Speaking of archai: De¢ning as revealing beings

What is a de¢nition? Often, especially when speaking of Aristotelian logic, one encounters the answer: de¢nitio ¢t per genus proximum et di¡erentiam speci¢cam. Traditionally, de¢nition is understood as a kind of taxonomical description by which a being is assigned a certain universal genus which is then subsequently further di¡erentiated by elucidating its unique, speci¢c characteristics: the leopard is a feline animal belonging to the panther family, etc. As such, a de¢nition serves the linguistic function of preserving a categorical awareness of a being, enabling humans to formulate a concept to be applied to the beings that they encounter in order to make them universally recognizable and graspable. By applying the conceptual categories of genus and species, human beings are able to perform a kind of division of the various parts of a being and a comparison to the animals with which they are like in order to place these beings within an already-existing organizational paradigm: leopards belong to the genus ``panther'' with the speci¢c di¡erence of possessing a light fur coat covered in spots.72 One might argue that such a method provides human beings with a rational structure by which they are able to harness and master natural beings by rendering them knowable and reducing their in¢nite complexity to orderable, catalogable (and hence meaningful) forms. De¢nitions, in this view, take possession of nature in such a way as to make it understandable and dependable.

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However, while the texts of Aristotle (which the above interpretation might claim as a source) may in fact betray a certain inclination to employ de¢nition for the sake of coming to a dependable familiarity and/or knowledge of a being, they point toward this conception of de¢nition as merely derivative and secondary. Rather than an investigation that cleaves the human from nature by abstraction into linguistic universals (genus and species), I want to argue that there remains a more primordial reading of the activity of de¢ning in Aristotle that betrays a deeper, more animated relation to nature, a relation that discloses an important natural capacity that human beings harbor. Human beings, among physei-beings, are perhaps uniquely capable of coming to an awareness of an other being not merely by human nature, but by/in that being's own nature. That is to say, human nature betrays a comportment or a¡ection in which a person can be aware of an other being not merely by human nature (through the cultural, linguistic, and casually habitual structures that form any given human's identity), but by the ``other'' nature of that being. As such, de¢nition would be the activity which seeks to unhinge itself from precisely those universal structures that govern a ``de¢nition'' in the traditional understanding of that term (the genus and species that circulate in a human cultural and linguistic economy) in order to open oneself to the other being. Thus, in this section I will argue that Aristotle's primary understanding of de¢nition shows itself as a kind of phenomenological reduction in which the inquirer turns toward a being in such a way that she loosens herself from the hermeneutic familiarity with a being in order to then be disposed in such a way that what some singular something is (ti esti) is revealed (delon). With these governing re£ections on Aristotle's texts, I will describe a mode in which human beings can encounter nature (and its singular beings) based neither upon mere sensuous perception nor strictly conceptual mediation. In order to disclose the more primary conception of de¢nition in Aristotle, I will begin in the ¢rst part of this section by returning to that structure we discussed in Chapter One, that structure by which Aristotle argues human beings become aware of anything at all: the prouparchousa gnoªsis (71 a 2).73 Often translated as ``preexistent knowledge,''74 my reading will suggest that the prouparchousa gnoªsis must be understood not as some individual's inner repository of previous empirical experience, but rather as a kind of political, hermeneutical horizon deeply informed by Aristotle's understanding of logos. Far from data ¢led away in a cabinet lying between the eyes and the ears, the prouparchousa gnoªsis seems rather to resemble a kind of cultural horizon into which human beings are born, a public, hermeneutical, dialogically constituted surrounding world that appropriates the individual and bequeaths an identity and a kind of citizenship. Most importantly, one's engagement with the world becomes shaped and organized by the prouparchousa gnoªsis, so, as we will see through a brief consideration of Aristotle's method in Physics, Books 1^3, one must a¡ect a certain disposition toward the prouparchousa gnoªsis in order to begin to perform the work of de¢nition, which is to say, in order to begin to move from an awareness of a being in accordance with our nature, toward an awareness of a being

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in accordance with its nature. In the second part of this section, subsequent to laying bare the prouparchousa gnoªsis, I will o¡er a reading of de¢nition as it is presented in the Posterior Analytics. It is in this text that we learn that de¢nition is the mode in which human beings undergo the experience of the archeª of a being under inquiry. De¢nition, Aristotle tells us, is the logos of the archeª. Yet this de¢nition is not achieved through apodeixis, through demonstration. Rather, Aristotle argues that de¢nitions serve as the archeª of demonstrations, so that demonstrations depend upon what is said in a de¢nition in order to be certain that their own claims are secure; for those performing demonstrations do not question their primary de¢nitions, but rather hold them as convictions. How then do de¢nitions come to be if not by demonstration? We will see that, through the work of critically engaging the prouparchousa gnoªsis, the archeª is subsequently made visible; the nature of the being is revealed (delon) or made manifest. The utterance of this vision of archeª Aristotle names a de¢nition. Finally, in the third, we will complete our analysis of de¢nition by addressing the muchdebated passages on the subject in Metaphysics zeta and eta. In this section we will come to see what it means to a¡ect a comportment by which we, as human beings, are able to come to an awareness of a being not by our nature (the prouparchousa gnoªsis) but by that being's own, other nature. We will secure this reading through a consideration of how a de¢nition (a gathering of words which are by nature ``universal'') can be said to be of one, singular, uni¢ed being. A.

De¢nition and the prouparchousa gnoªsis

As mentioned before, at the beginning of the Posterior Analytics, Aristotle states that all thinkerly teaching and learning proceed from an already-governing awareness (prouparchouseªs gnoªseoªs) (71 a 1).75 Since human beings are the beings whose nature is formed and determined by logos,76 everything that human beings do, qua human beings, is shaped by a logos-structure that precedes them, that already governs the meaning-horizon into which they are born. On my reading, the logos-structure into which human beings are bornöthe structure that bequeaths an identity, a language, a structure of already-governing sciences and arts, etc.öis the prouparchousa gnoªsis. All the various comportments that speech can a¡ect emerge out of this already-subtending awareness. As with ``all the sciences concerned with the learning of episteªmeª and each of the other technai . . . similarly also in the case of the logoiöboth those through syllogism and those through epagoªgeª '' (71 a 3^5)öall uniquely human disclosure and meaningful awareness proceed from the prouparchousa gnoªsis. Yet, even rhetoricöthat speech comportment not directed toward the disclosure of the good and the truthöemerges out of the prouparchousa gnoªsis: ``and that with which rhetorical arguments persuade is the same'' (71 a 9). Thus, it would seem that, for Aristotle, every activity that human beings perform that has to do with logos (that is to say, every activity that human beings perform that pertains to their unique nature) comes to be from out of the already-governing and -subtending awareness.77

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Yet what does the prouparchousa gnoªsis have to do with the activity of de¢nition? A consideration of Aristotle's initial mode of inquiry into archai will point us to an answer. As has been observed with much debate,78 Aristotle begins essentially every inquiry having to do with archai with an elucidation of the en/eudoxa which subtend the prevailing thoughts on the subject under inquiry. In the Physics, for instance, Aristotle prefaces his investigation into the archeª of nature with a survey of the arguments about the subject that are circulating in his surrounding world. Aristotle engages in a confrontation79 with Parmenides and the Eleatics (as well as with the physikoi) in order to make nature more explicit and perceivable and, thereby, to be able to show that nature and the motions over which it rules admit of being (a claim at risk in the arguments of the Eleatics). On my reading, Aristotle's activity here amounts to laying bare his hermeneutical resources (the prouparchousa gnoªsis) in order to elucidate more clearly what he already thinks about nature; that is, in order to get to an acquaintance with something in accordance with its nature (in a de¢nition), he must work through the arguments that already inform and shape what we think in accordance with our nature. Human beings are born into a hermeneutical horizon that circulates around them and appropriates them; humans are appropriated by a meaning structure that discloses the world for them. For the most part, human beings make their way through life without deep re£ection about this meaning-horizon that lights up their surrounding world. Most of the time, humans simply maintain an awareness of the world and the beings in it in accordance with their own nature; that is to say, they maintain an awareness of beings in accordance with the surrounding logos world informed by the prouparchousa gnoªsis. But when one a¡ects a comportment toward a being with the intention of disclosing its archeª (the ruling origin that discloses the nature of the being) in a de¢nition, then one must critically engage the structure thanks to which one has an awareness of that being at all: the endoxa of the surrounding world that have formed one's awareness of that being. In a¡ecting this critical comportment toward his meaning-horizon (in a way, toward himself ) of nature, Aristotle methodically lays out the arguments of the wise which most inform his awareness of physis. This is the same as to say, he allows the prouparchousa gnoªsisöthe structure of his own subtending fore-awarenessöto speak. In allowing the structure of his own subtending fore-awareness to speak, he has made visible to himself the constellation through which he has awareness of nature at all; that is, he has made himself aware of what he already thinks about nature, disclosing nature in accordance with his human nature. To be sure, in order to o¡er a de¢nition of a being (the ¢rst step toward approaching a being by its own nature), it is necessary to disclose the structure by which we have awareness of nature at all; but once that was achieved, Aristotle begins in book two to employ the medium made possible by the prouparchousa gnoªsis in order precisely to step out of it and a¡ect a comportment toward nature which might reveal nature by its own nature.

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What medium emerges as the condition of possibility for a¡ecting a comportment toward something not by our nature, but by a being's own nature? Logos. Reason, as logos, allows humans to step outside of that familiarity with the world in which their own hermeneutical horizon, their factical80 constitution, shapes the nature of the beings which they encounter. It is the nature of logos to a¡ord the potential to open humans to the prospect by which they may bear witness to the nature of a being by its nature. However, it is important to note that the very acquisition of logos complicates our assertion here. For logos is human factical constitution, after all: as the subtending, governing foreawareness, the prouparchousa gnoªsis in which humans are constituted lies in logos. Thus, logos seems to hold the potential for a self-di¡ering power in which the human who bears logos may employ logos to break out of his/her own rational constraints through a power derived from logos itself.81 Combining Aristotle's assertion in the Physics that nature is an archeª of motion82 with his claim that the nature of the human lies in its logos,83 we can argue that the nature of the human, at least in part, is to move in such a way as to employ logos and express our potential of disclosing any given nature by its nature; through logos, a rightly attuned human possesses the power to achieve a self-di¡ering motion in which s/he discloses an other being by its nature. Thus, the nature of the human would be precisely to a¡ect a certain disposition of a stranger or foreigner toward oneself, toward one's factical constitution.84 There are, no doubt, numerous ways in which logos can achieve this but here, in the Physics, Aristotle employs de¢nition. Aristotle laid bare the many ways that motion had been said and, at book three,85 it seems that the laying-bare itself has placed him (and us) in a position to sense motion more clearly and to speak of it in such a way that is evidently not a strict repetition of any of those beliefs about motion bequeathed to him by the prouparchousa gnoªsis, but is simultaneously not possible without them: the original de¢nition blooms forth out of the soil of the repeated structure of fore-awareness. I will not o¡er here a reading of the orismos of motion or its problems. What remains important in our current argument lies less in the content of that speci¢c de¢nition, but rather in the structure of de¢nition as it functions in Aristotle generally. In the ensuing argument, I will make and explicate the following points about de¢nition: (1) a de¢nition is a way for a human to break out of her nature (logos) by her nature (de¢nition is a logos, after all) in order to become aware of a being by its nature; (2) yet, this logical activity is not one that abstracts from nature in the way of mathematics or the diareisis of Platonism, but rather, (3) it is the a¡ection of a comportment in which one is attuned with the archeª of what something is (ti esti)öwhich is to say, one remains disposed in de¢nition to the archeª of a being's continuity. This last point will require an articulation of the Aristotelian notion of form (eidos); for ``form'', on my reading, is another way of saying logos,86 insofar as form is the disclosure of something ``held together'' (suneches), something which has been ``gathered into a certain relation'' (legein) by nature in such a way that its limits (horoi) are continuous. The consequences of this conception of de¢nition will be a

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certain alignment of logical activity with nature, thereby securing Proclus' intuitions (discussed at the beginning of the manuscript) that, for Aristotle, logic and the rational disclosure of nature are not things to be distinguished from nature and are clearly not necessarily abstractions of nature; rather, I will show that this form of logical disclosure, de¢nition, is of the continuity (sunecheia, the gathered-togetherness in disclosure that is form [eidos]) of a natural being which inscribes itself upon sensuous and intellectual perception. B.

De¢nition and the vision of archeª

As is well known, Aristotle o¡ers one of his more thorough accounts of de¢nition in the Posterior Analytics. Here, in a text dealing principally with demonstration (apodeixis), Aristotle famously di¡erentiates a demonstration from a de¢nition (orismos) in order to refute any claim that de¢nition can show itself as a proof or that apodeixis proves a de¢nition. While I will not provide a complete account of the many di¡erences that Aristotle o¡ers in his interpretation, I will point to a few of the di¡erences, the articulation of which will shine fruit-bearing light upon our present inquiry. Toward the end of his discussion of de¢nition's relationship to demonstration, Aristotle claims that there are three di¡erent ways that de¢nition is said:87 (1) on the one hand, de¢nition is spoken of as a logos of what something is (ti esti)88 (93 b 30).89 Of this ¢rst de¢nition of de¢nition, we can say that it most likely refers to an account of something insofar as it belongs to or comes along with (sumbebeªkos) a thing with thinghood (ousia), since otherwise it would essentially carry the same meaning as the third and more primary de¢nition of how orismos is said. Aristotle con¢rms my suspicion here by o¡ering ``triangular'' as an example of this ¢rst way that de¢nition can be said and ``triangular'' is a characteristic that can only belong to thinghood incidentally (sumbebeªkos).90 (2) On the other hand, de¢nition bespeaks a mode of speech which in quite limited cases can make manifest the ``why something is''öa privilege usually reserved for episteªmeª. As such, Aristotle argues, this second way that de¢nition is said would be ``like'' a demonstration of the what-somethingis (93 b 39), meaning de¢nition might resemble a demonstration. In other words, the de¢nition in the form of a syllogism may bespeak ``why something is'' in unique cases. For instance, in a certain way, the de¢nition of thunder (as ``the extinguishing of ¢re in the clouds'') already includes an account of why thunder is, but not in the form of a proof.91 (3) Finally, Aristotle o¡ers the third and more primary way de¢nition becomes said: ``de¢nition is the laying down of the indemonstrable immediate [sources (archai)] of what-something-is (ti esti)''92 (94 a 8).93 It is this ¢nal and more primary conception of de¢nition that interests us here. For the third form most di¡erentiates de¢nition from apodeixis while also articulating the technical part that de¢nition plays in any demonstration. Earlier in book two of the Posterior Analytics, Aristotle had already o¡ered a reading of what later is called the third form of de¢nition and this reading will help us to unpack the di¤cult de¢nition of orismos above while

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also enabling us to understand the nature of orismos, insofar as it discloses natural beings in a unique way.94 In his explication of the way a de¢nition di¡ers from a demonstration, Aristotle lays out three di¡erent characteristics that belong to an orismos that do not belong to apodeixis. (1) On the one hand, de¢nition is an archeª for a demonstration. (2) On the other hand, de¢nition is of ``what something is and of thinghood.'' (3) Thirdly, de¢nition makes the what-something-is visibleöit reveals (delon) what something is, it does not prove ti esti (90 b 30 ¡.). As to the ¢rst of our characteristics, Aristotle comes to articulate one attribute of de¢nition by assigning to it the role of archeª. Aristotle writes that de¢nitions are the archai upon which demonstrations rely, the archai which apodeixis must assume are without being able to demonstrate them. We must consider precisely what this means, for Aristotle also states that this ``has been shown earlier,'' recalling a claim that ``either the archai will be demonstrable and thus be archai of archai and this would be carried to in¢nity, or the ¢rst de¢nition will be indemonstrable'' (90 b 23 ¡.). What Aristotle refers to by the phrase ``has been shown earlier'' is a passage in book one of Posterior Analytics in which he argues that, even though the ¢rst principles are not demonstrable or provable, in order to be disposed toward a being in a knowing (episteªmeª ) way, we must be familiar and believe ( pisteuein) in the ¢rst principles even more than we do in conclusions of our demonstrations (72 b). Since the ¢rst principles (archai ) are ruling origins of beings and shape and determine not only their physical being, but even what becomes said about them (even in endoxa) and, indeed, the knowing of them (72 a 30),95 then it is of utmost importance to display the ¢rst archai and to hold conviction as to their disclosure96 if what becomes proved about them in a demonstration is to hold any reliable currency. One needs to be secure in one's conviction that the being about which a demonstration will be made is held in accordance with its archeª; for the archeª enters into the demonstration assumed and, for Aristotle, is not knowable (in the form of an episteªmeª, qua demonstration), since ``the archeª of apodeixis is not apodeixis and the archeª of episteªmeª is not episteªmeª'' (100 b 12). Otherwise, the demonstration will continue in¢nitely. For Aristotle, one takes for granted the archeª in apodeixis; one will have grasped the whatsomething-is in some other way. But how does a de¢nition, qua archeª, become grasped? One will recall that earlier we said that it was necessary to critically engage the prouparchousa gnoªsis in order to begin to a¡ect a comportment of a stranger or a foreigner to oneself, such that one could begin to come to an awareness of a being in accordance, not with our nature but with the being's. Here in the Posterior Analytics, Aristotle argues that this kind of engagement happens in the speech-comportment of epagoªgeª. The inquirer needs to employ epagoªgeª in order to gain access to the archai, an access a¡orded by the dialogical engagement with the prouparchousa gnoªsis. The reader will further recall that Aristotle argues that nature is an archeª for motion, not just any haphazard motion, but rather nature is an archeª for the primary activity of any being with a nature. Thus, the archeª rules over the primary activity that preserves and secures the being of a being. The archeª provides the

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ruling activity that holds the being together as the being that it is; it provides the continuity (sunecheia) which is necessary not only for the being to exist, but even for its graspability in thought or perception, insofar as that thing is to be grasped ``as'' any one thing and not a heap. A de¢nition is not some simple premise from which demonstrations begin; it is an archeª, an archeª that rules over a demonstration, yet remains indemonstrable by apodeixis. Moreover, a de¢nition is of the archeª of the primary activity of the being (the to ti en einai): a de¢nition bespeaks the nature of something in the primary sense. For Aristotle, the nature of the being already circulates in our hermeneutical horizon, since the archeª shapes and forms what becomes said about it. Thus, it would appear that, to make the archeª clear to ourselves, we must employ epagoªgeª and engage a being by laying out the prouparchousa gnoªsis that surrounds our awareness of the being, and subsequently, with sensuous or intellectual perception, take hold of the form or look (eidos) of the being that shines through, take hold of what-that-being-keeps-onbeing-in-order-to-be-what-it-is (to ti en einai ).97 De¢nition, as we have seen above, is of the to ti en einai. In order to grasp a being in such a way that we are aware of what it keeps on being in order to be at all, we employ epagoªgeª and lay bare the prouparchousa gnoªsis.98 Laying bare all that has been wisely said (legein) places us within a position to remove ourselves from our nature and open ourselves to the possibility of witnessing the nature of another being, of its to ti en einai. The activity of calling forth the many-saidedness of a being brings us forth before ourselves in such a way that we a¡ect a di¡erent comportment toward the being and, most importantly, to our awareness of it. We open ourselves and wait for disclosure, for the de¢nition, for the what-something-is; for, as the third characteristic of de¢nition makes clear, the to ti en einai is revealed (deloi ),99 it is not proved or logically acquired in the manner of demonstration. That the de¢nition is grasped as revelation means precisely that it shines forth out of the many-saidedness of the being undergoing inquiry and becomes grasped by intellectual perception, for ``it would be nous that is of archai'' (100 b 13).100 Moreover, in Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle reinforces our assertions here by claiming that ``nous is of de¢nitions'' (1142 a 25). In other words, what remains most consistent about a being, what discloses itself as continuous and in accordance with a principle of order, and remains e¡ected into that order and shaped into that continuity by its nature, shines forth as revelation for the sake of being grasped in de¢nition by intellectual perception. Moreover, such a revelation cannot be a universally applicable genus or species; for it must be of some singular something. We have more con¢rmation of this claim in the Physics, where Aristotle is concerned with naming one, uni¢ed, continuous motion. In chapter four of book ¢ve, Aristotle claims that we can speak of one motion either generically, speci¢cally or as simply one. A motion which displays generic unity is one in accordance with a certain category: the motion from black to white, for instance. A motion which displays speci¢c unity would be a motion which is one in accordance with a species within a category: say, the motion from white to whiter. One can immediately intuit the universal character of such motions. The concepts can circulate within conceptual

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economies just as de¢nitions do in accordance with the prouparchousa gnoªsis. Yet Aristotle says that it is possible to achieve an awareness of a motion (or perhaps any being) which is one without quali¢cation. As is clear from his description, we are able to achieve awareness of this unity through the prouparchousa gnoªsis, yet the unity achieved is prior to universality: ``but a motion is simply one which is one in its being and in number; and what is such is clear to those who de¢ne (diaireoª ) . . . the being one in genus or species belongs to the thing in which it is moved, the maintaining itself to the time, and the being simply one to all of these'' (227 b 20^30).101 Thus, I want to argue that a de¢nition in the primary sense would be a logos of the what-something-is which displays itself as simply one. C.

De¢nition in Metaphysics seven and eight

Yet, if we assent to my reading above, it might appear as though Aristotle really is Kantian after all. For if one lays out a logos-structure ( prouparchusa gnoªsis) and out of that logos-structure acquires the tools (rationality) through which one is able to break out of it in order to articulate another logos-structure (de¢nition), then when have we left consciousness? At what point did we reach the thing itself? The preceding answer to this question, that logos must be thought as a nature and not an abstraction from nature now needs further elucidation. The topic of de¢nition allows us the opportunity to think of a logos-structure as re¢ned as de¢nitionöwhich is to say a logos-structure that comes to light in the cutting away and separation that belongs to de¢nition (qua orismos)ö that is, for Aristotle, not an abstraction. In Metaphysics seven and eight, one encounters Aristotle's confrontation with Platonism's de¢nition. His principal critique of Platonic de¢nition orients itself toward what he sees as a problematic abstraction from nature.102 Let us pursue a reading of this text in order to understand more thoroughly how de¢nition, as being of the to ti en einai, relates to the thing it de¢nes.103 There are two points I would like to make in my interpretation of this most di¤cult text. On the one hand, in contrast to the majority of the secondary literature, I want to distance my reading of both Metaphysics seven and eight from those that focus on Aristotle's re¢nement of his conception of ousia.104 Rather I want to argue that Aristotle seems mostly concerned with understanding how an independent thing (ousia)öa being whose limits and divisions were shown to be dissolved by the continuity provided by the continuous motion of nature in the Physicsöcan be grasped in its singularity by a de¢nition; that is to ask, how can a de¢nition, qua logos, bespeak one thing? The question would seem quite appropriate to the chapters. After all, there are numerous aporia that present themselves upon considering de¢nition as a logos of the what-something-keepson-being-in-order-to-be-what-it-is (to ti en einai), as a logos of one, uni¢ed thing.105 For ``de¢nition [is supposed to be] something one that belongs to one thing'' (1030 b 5) and if de¢nition is not of one thing it means nothing, since ``not to mean one thing is to mean106 nothing, and when words have no

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meaning, conversation with one another and, in truth, even with oneself, is abolished'' (1006 b 10).107 As an example of an aporia, de¢nition, as something that employs universals, qua logoi, would be a repetition of a form or forms. How is de¢nition supposed to bespeak one, single thing if it consists of universals? For a universal applies to many things and many things belong to one universal. If de¢nition cannot grasp the what-something-keeps-on-being-in-order-to-bewhat-it-is (ti en einai), then there will be no immediate articulation of a beingö there will be no ground upon which one can say one knows anything. Everything will be a ``heap'' and there will be no independent things; for things are gathered together (legein) in accordance with the archeª that is bespoken in a de¢nition; things are gathered together in accordance with their form (eidos).108 If there are no beings held together in a continuous unity, then nature is not an archeª always or for the most part, circular motion is not continuous and there can be no knowledge of beings; indeed, there could be no beings, insofar as beings are continuous, uni¢ed things that are in accordance with the principle of non-contradiction. Clearly, Aristotle has not pursued the question of the archeª of nature through the entirety of the Physics and into book six of the Metaphysics in order for this archeª to dissolve upon the question of contact between logos and ousia (thinghood or independent thing).109 We must think form and its relation to de¢nition di¡erently. In Posterior Analytics, we see that Aristotle employs the term ``universal'' (katholou) to describe the form insofar as we apprehend the form in a de¢nition through the speech comportment of epagoªgeª. This ``universal,'' qua eidos, is said there to be grasped in the work of aisthesis or nous. Yet, here in Metaphysics seven, it would appear that Aristotle wants to further qualify what he means by ``form,'' for ``universal'' becomes problematic: It seems to some people that the universal is responsible for a thing most of all, and that the universal is a governing source (archeª ), and for that reason let us go over this. For it seems impossible for any of the things [others mean by] universal to be thinghood. For in the ¢rst place, the thinghood of each thing is what each is on its own, which does not belong to it by virtue of anything else, while the universal is a common property, since what is meant universally is what is of such a nature as to belong to more than one thing. Of which of them, then, will it be the thinghood? (1038 b 5)110 For Aristotle, ousia cannot be strictly universal, qua the universal of Platonism, for if it were, then it would belong to all things partaking of that universalönot one of them would be an independent thing (ousia) which would carry the governing power of an archeª, a necessity for the unity of any one thing. For the universal would be simultaneously many, insofar as others are also the same ousia. Another problem in arguing that the universal is an independent thing (ousia) shows itself in the articulation of ousia as a category, for, in the examination of a being as it reveals itself at any particular moment, the ousia is that which cannot be attributed to any underlying thingöfor instance, ``white,'' qua quality is

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always attributed to the ousia that carries it (e.g., the white rose), but ``this rose'' before me is not attributed to anything else. However, it is the nature of this understanding of universal to be attributed to some ousia. For instance, ``animal,'' as a ``Platonic''111 universal is attributed qualitatively to a particular instance of animal, as if ``this'' animal receives its animality from some separate animal-ousia. Thus, in this articulation of a universal, there remains something more primary, some form more originary and governing. In fact, we will say presently that this more primary eidos that Aristotle calls ousia is itself the archeª of the universal. For this claim, we point to the passage a few pages before the preceding quotation, where Aristotle argues that we are aware of particular beings by nous or by aisthesis, ``and once these fall away from an active exercise [of nous or aisthesis], it is not clear whether they have being or not, but they are always described and known by means of a universal logos'' (1036 a 7). As such, we grasp the archeª, qua form (eidos) of a ruling origin, a form (which I insist must still be conceived as a kind of logos, perhaps the most primordial logos) which can be subsequently formed into a universal. One might say that, in these instances, the Platonists interpret form exactly in reverse, insofar as they see form as a universal ¢rst, rather than as a governing origin that provides continuity to a being. The universal form/logos, that becomes bespoken in the prouparchousa gnoªsis, is generated and ruled over by a form/logos in the more primary senseö that of the independent thing. The form of the independent thing is a logos, insofar as it is that which gathers and holds together a being in continuity, and expresses and displays its continuity, its complete motion, by its being-at-work (energeia). Aristotle con¢rms this point a bit later in the same chapter quoted above through another criticism of the way that Platonic forms become universally employed which will be most decisive for our recon¢guration of orismos: this third problem lies in the linking of independent things into a contiguous composite of a being. If a de¢nition, the articulation of what-something-is, becomes expressed through the activity of diareisis (division) in such a way that one thinks that the particular being consists of numerous instances of universal forms which are themselves separate from the things which participate in them, then one will have at least two results: (1) a de¢nition that is contiguous, not continuous. One does not speak of one thing in this de¢nition, but rather of numerous things joined together into a heap, a being that is not de¢ned by what it uniquely does (a being's energeia, a being's complete motion), but rather by all of its parts. ``A de¢nition is one not by being bundled together like the Iliad, but by being of one thing'' (1045 a 15), a unity that displays continuity, not contiguity. In addition to the lack of continuity, Aristotle thinks that this ¢rst consequence remains impossible, since that which de¢nes the thing is broken up into numerous independent things and an independent thing cannot consist of independent things. As such, a de¢nition shows itself as multiple forms gathered together in such a way as to contain many universals and, therefore, there will be many universals within the same being (1039 a ¡.). (2) But also the consequence will follow that the de¢nition expresses not what something is, or

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what-something-keeps-on-being-in-order-to-be-what-it-is, but rather it will express the relations to and qualities of the other, separate, universal forms in which the thing participates. Aristotle writes in Metaphysics one that ``in general, the arguments about the forms abolish things which we want there to be, more than we want there to be forms. For it turns out that [for the Platonists] not the dyad, but the number, is primary and what is relative is more primary than what is in its own right'' (990 b 20). Yet a de¢nition is supposed to be an expression of something by that being's own right, by that being's own nature; if articulated correctly, a de¢nition reveals the nature of a being by its own nature, it reveals the to ti en einai. Thus the retreat from bodies and beings toward abstract universals actually leads one farther away both from form and from ousia; for de¢nition is indeed of the revealed form, although, as we have seen, the form as the to ti en einai, as energeia, shows up in a very di¡erent way than universals. Yet, to say that de¢nition does not display the universal parts joined together into a beingöas if a being were like a jointure of parts like the Iliadöbut rather reveals the being-at-work (the energeia), as the to ti en einai, is to say that de¢nition must ¢rst be thought as a revelation of a being's most primordial motion, a being's complete motion that reveals its archeª. The unique work that a being undergoes, its most primordial activity, reveals itself as a single, continuous, uni¢ed gathering of complete motion. And the reception of this is a de¢nition. De¢nition is of the complete motion, the energeia of a beingöits primary activity. And this articulation of de¢nition would seem to be more strongly derived from book eight. Rather than viewing book seven as the chapter in which one discovers Aristotle's conception of de¢nition, I'd rather argue that book eight betrays a clearer consideration. In fact, book seven appears to set up the problems around the unity of de¢nition rather than to elucidate how de¢nition actually is uni¢ed for Aristotle. Indeed, it is within book eight that de¢nition comes to be more clearly articulated in its relation to form as precisely a beingat-work and not as a conglomeration of abstract universals.112 Thus, de¢nition should not be seen as a hypostatized meaning and account of a separate natural occurrence, but rather as an account (logos) of the look (eidos) of gathered (legein) and continuous activity. De¢nition points toward the revelation of a dependable event, an event of gathered, meaningful motion that shows itself as complete activityöthe expression of what something keeps on being in order to be the being that it is. As such, a de¢nition is an articulation of the archeª of a being, which is the same as to say that both the archeª of our logical awareness of a being and the archeª of a being's own energeia are the same. For, ``just as in demonstration, ousia is the archeª of everything, for syllogisms come from what-something-is, while [among biological forms] generations do'' (1034 a 35). Thus, a de¢nition is a logos-being that bespeaks a gathering of various parts into a continuous, uni¢ed, whole. Platonism's de¢nition failed at this; it gathered into a contiguous whole. But in Aristotle's world, the truth of a de¢nition must adhere to the same conditions and structures of the truth of physical beings.

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The archeª for the physical being is the same as for the de¢nition. A physical being, too, is a gathering of parts into a continuous whole. De¢nition is not a collection of parts (words) sewn together; it is not a taxonomical description. In the phrase of a de¢nition, the limits between the separate parts dissolve and the de¢nition displays continuity and unity. That is to say, the de¢nition: ``a human is a terrestrial animal that walks on two legs'' is not a collection of terms and kinds that describe the human. The human is not an ``animal'' and ``terrestrial'' and ``bi-pedal.'' Rather, the phrase names a unity. Yet, perhaps ``human being'' cannot be the archeª that a proper de¢nition names anyway. Proper de¢nitions speak the archeª of a singular something. That is, they make clear the vision of ``what something is.'' Proper de¢nitions require a deeper, more open consideration of a being than is named in the a posteriori de¢nition ``human being.'' What we might call the ``a posteriori '' de¢nition of the genus ``human being'' is merely a logos of our awareness of something in accordance with our nature. What a de¢nition seeks to express is the awareness of a being in accordance with that being's nature. ``Human being'' already circulates within the prouparchousa gnoªsis. To get to an awareness of Socrates or of Callius, we must employ a method to break out of an awareness of them simply as ``just more human beings among others'' (a comfortable concept circulating in the prouparchousa gnoªsis) in order to a¡ect a disposition toward them that achieves an awareness of ``Socrates'' in his singularity, in his unity; which is to say, the potential for a primary de¢nition is harbored in a comportment which respects his otherness, his continuity. Such is what is achieved in the rational activity Aristotle describes: moving from an awareness of something in accordance with our nature toward an awareness with something in accordance with its nature, as other.

Chapter Three

On the Natural Possibilities of Reason

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes)

Walt Whitman1

At this point in our elucidation of the nature of logos, we have come quite a way in locating the place of reason in nature as well as formulating how logos/ logoi can be said to be a nature, both in the sense of natural generation (through nature's securing the being of beings by gathering into a continuous ``form'') and in the sense of human rational disclosure (the syllogisms of which derive their dependability from the revelation of their ruling origins in a de¢nition). We came to these observations through two inquiries, each represented by the foregoing two chapters. The ¢rst o¡ered an account of discovery in the speechcomportment of epagoge, occasioned by the di¤culties of speaking of nature referenced by Aristotle in the ¢rst chapter of the Physics, which itself necessitated addressing the historical problem of whether to consider Aristotle's method of natural disclosure as one with a priori or empirical inclinations (neither of which, we said, accurately describe the phenomenon of discovery in Aristotle). In this ¢rst beginning, we saw that for Aristotle there belongs to human nature a second-order logos-structure that shapes the human encounter with the nature of any being: the prohuparchousa gnoªsis. Moreover, we saw that the procedure for discovery is precisely the laying-bare of this structure through recalling the wise speech of historical memoryöbringing before us a body of speech that makes visible what we already think about the matter under inquiry. Only subsequent to this laying-bare of the prouparchousa gnoªsis (a logos structure) are we able to take a stand and a¡ect a comportment by which we can break out of a familiarity with something by our nature (logos) in order to be familiar with a being by its nature (logos). As such, we are able to intuit the self-di¡ering structure of logos as we move from a familiarity with something by our nature to a familiarity with something by its nature. We were able to elucidate this comportment more concretely in Chapter Two, within which we had arrived at the necessity to o¡er an account of nature by its nature, since awareness of nature is necessary to speak of the nature of logos. Here, we laid bare the prouparchousa gnoªsis of Aristotelian ``nature'' in order to o¡er an interpretation of physis in accordance with its nature as an archeª of motion. Consequent to laying bare the prouparchousa gnoªsis

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subtending Aristotle's physis, we said that the phrase ``nature as a ruling origin of motion'' means precisely that nature lends continuity (sunecheia) to beings (even motions) and structures them with security and dependability rather than with chance or disorganization. In fact, it was through continuity that Aristotle was able to show that motion does admit of being, even though motion remains incomplete. Finally, we saw that Aristotle argues that all motions and all beings (insofar as they are continuous) derive their preserving force from one thing: circular motion. Circular motion confers continuity upon the beings of natureöso much so that we were forced to refrain from repeating a historically common distinction between nature in its motive character and ``real, metaphysical'' being. Even the motions of thinking and rational disclosure are compelled into their motions by the periechon, and the beings situated there ultimately owe the certainty of their continuous being to circular motion. Accuracy and dependability in rational enquiry, therefore, do not depend upon an abstraction from nature, we read, but rather precisely upon an attunement with a fundamental principle of nature: circular motion. Far from ¢nding its cause in a metaphysical origin beyond and above nature (either in the sense of an objective source beyond nature or a subjective origin deep within a non-physical core in individual humans), the conclusions of rational discourse are secured (or unhinged) in their articulations by their continuity (or lack thereof ), a continuity originating from the everlasting motion of the spheres. Thus far, therefore, logos is understood most primarily as ``a gathering,'' a gathering into continuous, dependable form; and we see this in every natural beingöeach natural being is gathered by its nature into the being that it is and it remains continuous by performing the work that shines forth as its unique motion (its energeia, its to ti en einai ). As such, nature is a principle of gathering, an archeª or ruling origin of the gathering of any being into its unique look, shape, and work. The logos of speech and rational disclosure, I argue, must be conceived as derivative and secondary to this more primordial logos. We must think of rational disclosure (for Aristotle, the exquisitely human nature) as a particular way that human beings express their nature; which is to say, we must orient our thoughts toward human nature, a principle of a unique motion, shape, and look, as preserving itself via the work of logosöand, as we have said before, this consists of rational disclosure in all of its ethical forms: whether of episteme, phronesis, or sophia. Yet before we can articulate the unique motion that belongs to the human being more clearly, we must ¢rst contend with a mode of being that seems to coincide naturally with things logos (in both its more primary occurrence as the gathering of natural beings into continuous and de¢ning work [ergon] and in the derivative manifestation of human rational disclosure): dunamis. So far in our explication of Aristotelian natural beings and their motions, we have focused mostly upon energeia in an e¡ort to secure the being of motion through circular motion. Yet beings in motion also betray dunamis, an equally important mode of being.

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Earlier, we have pointed toward a moment in the Physics in which Aristotle, looking for a way to articulate the being of motion, considers everything that is.2 We have reason now to refer to it for a third timeöalthough with a di¡erent point of referenceöa repetition which is perhaps not surprising given that Aristotle considers the passage to speak of everything, even if only generally. This time, however, we will focus upon the articulation of the mode of potency (dunamis) in the passage. Of the things that are, he writes: ``There is that which is fully and actively itself, but also that which is what it is, in part, only potentially'' (200 b 28). With these words, we understand Aristotle's kosmos to consist of beings which, on the one hand, are most thoroughly what they are, always fully at-work performing the activity that subtends their being. Beings that are in this way, as we mentioned before, do not undergo change and they cannot be other than they are. While Aristotle does not elaborate on this mode of being here, we can be assured from book eight that the kind of work they perform must be identical to that measure of all motions, everlasting circular motion. In addition to these beings, Aristotle refers to beings that undergo another mode of being, a mode he spends the rest of the Physics, as well as much of the Metaphysics, trying to bring into clarity. Among all the beings that admit of being, he also observes those that are in such a way that they may either be fully and actively the kind of being that they are, or they can be so potentially. As such, the beings that are both potentially and actively change: there is motion between them. Aristotle already argued in book one3 that previous thinkers could have resolved many of their aporia if they had considered beings in potency as possessing being. Now, at book threeöon the cusp of his de¢nition of motionöAristotle lets us understand why: failing to sense the being of potency prevents one from developing the conceptual resources to think the being of motion (and the being of physis). Seeing dunamis as a genuine mode (and later called an archeª ) of being enables Aristotle to overcome the aporia occasioned by earlier re£ections on generation. The lack of potency as part of a conceptual possibility for thinking being is most evident in the earlier thinkers' questions (the Megarians and Eleatics among them) surrounding whether things come to be out of either what is or what is not: They say that none of the beings either comes into being or is destroyed, since it is necessary that what comes into being come either out of what is or out of what is not, and out of both of these it cannot come; for a being would not come into being (since it already is), and from what is not, nothing could come into being, since something must underlie it. (191 a 25) The dilemma of generationöthat things cannot come to be from nothing and cannot be destroyed into nothingögives rise to the (for Aristotle) absurd conclusion that there cannot be generation, change or motion. It would appear that Aristotle considers his own original contribution in this debate (a contribution he takes to resolve it) to be the introduction of potency as a way that something is. Both here in book one (where he investigates what is more primary in

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natural generation) and in book three of the Physics (where Aristotle displays nature as a ruling origin of motion) the disclosure and intellectual awareness of potency is held as central to the possibility of possessing a dependable conception of nature. One will only a¡ect a knowledgeable comportment toward nature if one includes potency as a way that physis admits of being. Here we are reminded, again, of the impossibility to think either Aristotelian logic or ethics without ¢rst thinking them through the physical treatises (or at least not without them). As Aristotle repeats these considerations in the Metaphysics, we witness him securing logical and ethical foundations by reference to their physical origins. If potency does not admit of physical being as something distinct from energeia, he argues in chapter three of book nine, then knowledge is not possible. Recalling the ever-present threat of certain arguments presented about knowledge in the Meno, Aristotle, criticizing the Megarians, argues that failing to incorporate potency into one's articulation of the way beings of nature are forces one to say absurd things about nature. He illustrates such absurd conceptions with physical examples, both things without souls and things with souls, such as seeing and hearing;4 but he also includes techneª and practical action. For instance: There are some who say that a thing has a potency only when it is active, but that when it is not active it has no potency for that activity; for instance someone who is not building a house is not capable of building a house, but only the one who is building a house . . . is capable of it . . . The absurd consequences of this opinion are not di¤cult to see. For it is clear that someone will not even be a house-builder if he is not building a house (since to be a house-builder is to be capable of building a house), and similarly too with the other arts . . . Whenever one stops [building a house] he will not have the art, so if he starts building a house again straight o¡, how will he have acquired the art? (My italics, 1046 b 30 ¡.) Aristotle's argument here and in the remainder of his examples implies that without the way of being that is called potency, a way of being that appears as nothing less than a certain kind of latency, not only is physical generation and motion not possible, but even the ethical virtues of techneª and episteme would require a kind of instantaneous generation to come into being: the know-how of the house-builder must be latent while she bakes a cake, just as the most exquisite activity of the tree lies latent in winter; the work of the astro-physicist remains on the periphery of her being while she secures the being of her child, while she shines forth in presence as a mother. So, in addition to eliminating the possibility of motion, the Megarian denial of potency unhinges the ethical virtues (in this case, episteªmeª ) from their security among beings of nature. If one is to achieve a reliable awareness of a being in the intellectual disclosure of nature, therefore, one must always keep potency in viewöthe sensation of the being of any given being must expand to include the periphery; for potency, in even the very best conditions for vision, remains peripheral to sight. Yet what

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does this mean? What is required of us to maintain observation of potency in the consideration of beings of nature? I would argue that potency as a way that something can be remains, after more than two millennia of commentary and analysis, quite foreign and unsettling. Indeed, perhaps commentators on Aristotle's texts have analyzed and commented on potency thoroughly, to the point where it no longer appears ambiguousöeven Aristotle o¡ers a de¢nition of it, after all.5 Yet answering the simple question of what thinking potency requires of us reveals how little, despite thousands of years of discourse, it has settled into the common conceptual economy. If dunamis/energeia betrays a mode of being in physis (indeed the most common mode of being in physis, a mode to which we also belong, qua human beings), then, for us, thinking potency means precisely to consider something not there as there; we must see something not present as present; as natural scientists, we must be a witness for the being of something which immediate physical observation tells us is not. Potency does not count for us as a mode of being; as such, it remains a foreigner to our conceptual household. Rather, we view potency as either something potentially present (only once a being is fully present as the being that it is do we consider it something which isöalthough, perhaps what Aristotle means by fully at-work (energeia) remains equally ambiguous to our sensibilities) or we view potency simply as hocus pocus, distrusting ruling origins that only teleologically promise being. As such, what is merely possible, we grant as obtaining only once the being de-cisively comes forth into the light, breaking free from any residue of shadowy possibility in favor of clear and imminent presence. Thus, what normally counts for us as being remains situated in the pre-Aristotelian conception of being. Yet, for Aristotle and his teleological ordering of the kosmos, potency not only must be considered as a certain way that something can be said to be, but also to neglect potency renders any account of nature impotent to argue for the being of natureöeither its motions or, as we shall see, its virtuous dispositions. Accordingly, in keeping with the ancient tradition of being hospitable to strangers, in this chapter, I will give space to the seemingly foreign way of thinking potency as being. First we should lay out the role of potency in physis at large, then we will show how this potency informs human potency in the rational deliberations of ethics and politics (which is to say, the comportments of techneª, episteªmeª, sophia, phroneªsis, and even dikeª ).

1.

The logos of dunamis in physis

In order to understand more clearly how the things that are in physis can be said to be even though they are not presentöand by ``present'' I do not simply mean being there before a sensuous soul, but rather I mean the standing-out of a being in its own place, a being that is fully at-work doing what that being does by natureöwe should incorporate into our argument the famous de¢nition of potency in book nine of the Metaphysics. In this text, Aristotle repeats arguments already made in book four6 in which he had named the various ways that we

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speak of dunamis. As with many things, potency is said (legetai ) in many waysö all of which, despite their di¡erences, bespeak something that can be held together by the name ``dunamis.''7 In book nine, Aristotle seeks to limit the discussion to the most primary sense of dunamis, the sense in which all the other ways we speak of potency participate and ¢nd their seminal continuity. ``Now it has been distinguished by us in other places that potency and being potential are said in more than one way,'' writes Aristotle: and of these, let the ones that are called powers (dunameis) ambiguously be set aside . . . but as many of them as point to the same form are all certain kinds of ruling origins, and are said in reference to one primary kind of potency, which is a ruling origin (archeª ) of change (metaboleªs) in some other thing or in the same thing as other. (My italics, 1046 a 5) Of all the ways that potency becomes said, the primary meaning that subtends all of the others is: dunamis as a ruling origin of change in some other thing. It is perhaps here that the meanings of potency as ``latent capacity'' and potency as ``e¡ective power'' most ambiguously converge; for, in considering the mode of being dunamis/energeia as presented in the Physics, we might regard dunamis as only a ``latent capacity'' while thinking of energeia as the formal power to e¡ect itself.8 Yet Aristotle argues here that dunamis is an archeª of change, both in the sense of an a¡ective capacity to undergo change and in the sense of an e¡ective power out of which a change emerges. Moreover, Aristotle further quali¢es the de¢nition to re£ect the observations made in the Physics regarding the possibility of selfmotion (or the lack thereof ):9 a being is a¡ected into change by the e¡ection of some other being. For instance, the house-builder possesses the power and capacity out of which e¡ects transformation in wood and stone in order that a house can be brought forth into being; the house-builder e¡ects ( poiein) transformation in some other thingönamely, the wood and stone. From Aristotle's description here, we are reminded of the Physics' claim that the being-at-work of the buildable, insofar as we say it (legomen) to be such, is building (201 a 16).10 House-building power, we are led to assume, is only e¡ectable insofar as the potency of wood and stone (the a¡ected buildable) is articulated and on display as for the sake of a house. Among all of the potencies wood and stone may have, that ``as'' buildable must shine forth as available to the e¡ection of the house-builder. Similiarly, Aristotle employs the example of medical art. The doctor has the power to facilitate health in other human beings; there is a poiein/paskein relationship between something and its other: of doctor and patient. Yet, simultaneously with the necessity for the a¡ected to shine forth as available for doctoring, the doctor too must also be disposed and lit up as a doctor and not, for instance, as another potency.11 Therefore, on the one hand, dunamis appears to make manifest a relation of change between a doer ( poiein) and a su¡erer ( paskein). On the other hand, dunamis makes possible and visible a way of being in which beings with souls12 can be otherwise;13 beings with souls gathered together in such a way so as to be on transformative display: someone shines forth as something while holding something else in latency.14

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Similarly to these rational potencies (potencies that require a soul with logos), an alogikos potency possesses the power to transform something else from cold into hot, insofar as a being is gathered together in such a way so as to be disposed toward another being as ``hot,'' or at least ``hotter.'' Of course, that the rock possesses the potency to e¡ect ( poiein) heat and consequently warm a being contiguous with it implies that the rock also possesses the potency to a¡ect ( paskein) heat, suggests Aristotle (1046 a 20). A potency for a¡ection lies in latency while that for e¡ection goes to work (ergon). Insofar as the being is said15 to be the doer, the potency blossoms forth into the work (energeia) as e¡ection, but the being, argues Aristotle, still possesses the dunamis in latency to a¡ect whatever work is being observed. Moreover, when a being is able to undergo tremendous force (dunamis) without undergoing change, this too belongs to the meaning of potencyöas the capacity for a being to hold (hexis) and secure itself when undergoing (paskein) otherwise deteriorating and destructive (or simply motive) forces.16 Yet what about e¡ecting the transformation of health in oneself? The ``doctor'' has the power to act (as doer) upon himself (as su¡erer), insofar as he is other to himself, qua doctor, insofar as he is a ``human'' that responds in certain ways to speci¢c medical treatments. Through these four ways of articulating potency as a ruling origin of change (a doer e¡ecting change in an other being, a capacity to a¡ect a change initiated by another being, the capacity to e¡ect a comportment of holding oneself against change, and also of e¡ecting a change in oneself as other), we can see that there inheres within the beings that are in accordance with dunamis/energeia a curious formula (logos) guiding the unfolding of their unique mode of being. Moreover, this formula is completely subtended by metabole. Physei-beings are gathered together in their being in such a way as to shine forth as something while simultaneously harboring a latency as something else. Their being shines forth out of a ruling origin (archeª ) of a capacity (dunamis) into a work (ergon), yet also covers over, conceals, and harbors within capacities that equally belong to the gathered unity, to the logos or formula or articulation17 of that being. Their activity shines forth, displaying this particular being as a doctor or a housebuilder, as a riverbed18 or an estuary. Yet it is important to note that these potencies are. Given these considerations, therefore, potency most fundamentally reveals what we must call an as structure19 at the heart of nature, an as structure brought to light in the categorical description of beings that possess the kind of being that changes, the being of those beings that are in potency and being-at-work. Indeed, as has been the subtending theme of the manuscript all along, I want to argue that the as structure here being articulated is not brought to and bestowed upon the beings of nature by concept-bearing human beings. Rather, as we have elsewhere discussed, categorical descriptions name the beings that are and paskein and poiein are categories of being. Allow me to interrupt the articulation of this as structure insofar as it relates to potency in order to counter a potential misunderstanding. Potency as a ruling origin of change in an other being or in the same being as other does not here mean that a change happens within the category of paskein and poiein. Aristotle

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remains quite convinced that, if we allowed paskein and poiein to be subject to motion, then the transformation would never be complete and we would, thus, not be able to secure the being of motion. In book ¢ve, chapter two of the Physics, Aristotle thinks through to which categories motion may belong. We are, of course, tempted to point toward paskein and poiein, insofar as acting and beingacted-upon already imply motion. But Aristotle denies it. For to say that there is motion of paskein or poiein is to say that ``there is a motion of a motion'' (225 b 15) or a generation of a generation. Into what would a generation be generating? To where would a motion move? For Aristotle, such a motion of a motion would lead to in¢nity. Yet he argues this conclusion in a rather humorous way. He writes: ``for example, if a simple coming into being at some time came into being, then also the coming into being of it came into being, so that not yet would there be the thing that came into being simply, but a coming into being that was coming into being beforehand, and this in turn came to be sometime, so that not yet would there be the coming into being that was coming into being then'' (226 a 2). In other words, if we are to maintain that a motion has a continuous, uni¢ed, simple being, then we cannot grant a motion of paskein or poiein; for the motion that was coming into being would never arrive and never be complete, but in¢nitely approach its completion. Aristotle also o¡ers a similar example for the destruction of a destruction, but I will restrain myself from quoting a passage similar to the one from which the reader is no doubt still recovering. What seems to me important to gather from this passage in the context of our work on potency is that paskein and poiein are dispositions of a being capable of motionöa being belonging to the realm of potency/being-at-work. What we witness when we consider any particular being that lies before us, insofar as we consider it categorically, is a gathering of beings (categories); one such being is paskein or poiein, an e¡ection or a¡ection. Presumably, a being within physis is never not moving (even if it is resting, it must also be su¡ering rest by the hand of force, or actively resting). Thus, possessing the disposition of undergoing (or doing) something lies at the heart of what comes along with (sumbebeªkos) any physei being. On the one hand, potency in physis remains a source (an archeª ) for emergence of poiein while holding paskein in latency. In physis, a being displays itself as the being that performs the work, a capability in potency blooms forth from out of the periphery and achieves itself, whether as doing or su¡ering. Hence the comportments of paskein and poiein, while not the only examples displaying the ``as structure'' of physis available to us in Aristotle's considerations of potency and its nature, nevertheless have provided us with a rich beginning from which we may set up the stage upon which to host this foreigner. We may see more evidence of the as structure belonging to nature very near the previously quoted passage from book one of the Physics where Aristotle suggests that the reason why previous thinkers made absurd observations of and conclusions about nature is because they lacked a proper sensation of potency in their dealings with the being of beings of nature. ``We say,'' writes Aristotle,

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that for something to come into being out of what is or what is not, or for what is not or what is to do something or be acted upon or become anything whatever to which one might point, is in one way no di¡erent than for a doctor to do something or be acted upon or be or become something out of being a doctor . . . Now the doctor builds a house not as a doctor but as a house-builder, and turns pale not as a doctor but as swarthy; but he heals or fails at healing as a doctor. But since we say most properly that a doctor does or su¡ers something or becomes something from a doctor when as a doctor he su¡ers or does or becomes these things, it is clear that also ``this comes into being from what is not'' means what is not insofar as it is not. (My italics, 191 a 35 ¡.) Here, Aristotle again raises the problem of the pre-Socratic conception of being by challenging the way they speak of becoming. As was mentioned before, since they fail to observe potency as a way of being, they simply cannot speak correctly regarding the coming to be of beings. Aristotle agrees that things cannot come to be from nothing and that something cannot be destroyed into nothing (191 b 13). But he argues that house-building materials come to be a house insofar as they possess the potency to be a¡ected into a house. So, indeed, a house comes into being from not-being, yet only insofar as it is not a house at-work, but only a house in potency. Moreover, not-being e¡ects a being here, insofar as a doctor facilitates the coming to be of the house, but not as a doctor. More exactly, the doctor in this example clearly holds house-building potential, insofar as she can build a house. However, the coming to be from nothing remains a valid description of the phenomenon: it is not an unquali¢ed coming to be from nothing, but a coming to be out of a latency inherent in the as structure of the being under inquiry. The doctor remains held together and on display as a doctor, insofar as this would otherwise appear to be her primary work.20 Yet, this beingöthe doctorömay disclose herself in ways not otherwise evident, but belonging to her in potency. While this description may not appear that striking as a description of technical capabilities a human being develops over time, Aristotle argues that this coming to be of house-building in the doctor is no di¡erent than a physical-something coming to be from what is not, which is to say that the same ``as structure'' belongs to the being of the tree (or any natural being). The tree bears the structure of a fruit-grower in potency, but only insofar as it is in season to bloom forth as such. In winter, the fruit is in potencyöit does not come to be from nothing without quali¢cation, but it can be said to emerge from nothing with quali¢cation: insofar as the tree emerges into fertility in the spring from out of a disposition of infertility characteristic of trees in winter. A tree can also be seen as a fruit-grower in potency while disposed as diseased or undergoing drought. But, for Aristotle, the fruit can be said to be in potency and, in this way, it can be said to be in its becoming. Given the context of these assertions, it is important to recall that Aristotle does not o¡er an epistemology here; he does not suggest that we can work through a logical absurdity through forcing nature to conform to our

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awareness. Rather, in the context of the Physics, he is providing a phenomenological description of natural beings and their motions, while simultaneously challenging the common conception of the being of natural beings, a common conception that led the pre-Socratics to describe physis in a way that it is not. For him, the way that physis is betrays a way of being of natural beings that cannot be described in a black and white world of present beings and absent nonbeings. Natural beings are in such a way that they can be di¡erently, they harbor latent potencies while they are at work in others. But, for Aristotle, unlike the pre-Socratics and unlike us, these potencies must be said to be (although, to be sure, Aristotle does privilege energeia).21 I name this nature of being an ``as structure'' to elucidate the array22 which is logos lying at the heart of natural beings that are in accordance with the dunamis/ energeia mode of being. At the beginning of book nine of the Metaphysics, where Aristotle begins to consider potency and being-at-work in their most primary meanings, he speaks about ousia (the thinghood of any particular being). We have discovered through our consideration, he argues, that ousia has a primary logos, a primary constitutive structure or form-ula or array. Moreover, this gatheredness or formulation inherent in ousia is shared or repeated in all other beings, whether of quantity or quality or any of the categories of being. Thus, on the one hand, about primary being and that to which all the other categories of being refer, it has been said: that is, about thinghood (ousia). For according to the formula of thinghood, it [thinghood] arrays/formulates/ gathers the other beings, both the quanity and the quality and the other such things we say. For everything has/holds the logos of thinghood, just as we say in the earlier accounts.23 (1045 b 25) Here we have an argument regarding the structure of natural thinghood that many of the translations lose entirely. Often, the passage is translated to suggest that, until this point, Aristotle has o¡ered a ``conception'' (logos) of ousia. Moreover, this conception, it is often argued, can now be applied to the other ways that something can be.24 The translation of logos as concept or even articulation25 reverses the relation between logos and ousia in Aristotle's claim. If we admit the sense that is unquestionably guiding the interpretations of these translations, then we take what is an argument that displays the thinghood of a thing as a formöas a being gathered together and arrayed in such a way as to be visible in accordance with its own natureöand we reverse the argument into a human concept or a notion of ousia that we can apply to the physical world. Here, as my translation indicates, I would argue that the logos is much more akin to, and perhaps even a critical appropriation of, the Heraclitean logos. What we have achieved in the foregoing discussions is the discovery of the proper array that belongs to ousiaöwe have discovered the most primary ordered kosmos at the heart of every being, a logos or gatheredness of ousia. Moreover, it not only belongs to ousia as such, but also gathers the other beings that are in potency/being-at-work (the categories) to itself in a certain

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interrelatedness.26 In part, these beings are arrayed in such a way as to delineate a much wider space than we usually a¡ord to beings. That is to say, certain beings belonging to this constellation of beings harbor themselves in latency, like planets which turn away from the sun or which retreat into eclipse, while others make themselves visible, turning toward the light. Perhaps we can say that a¡ection and e¡ection, for instance, remain somehow the same ``planet,'' yet the planet is arrayed to display itself in di¡erence in accordance with its comportments toward other beings. At ground, however, Aristotle argues above that ousia is in accordance with a certain logos, a certain gathered array. Moreover, this logos remains held by all beings that are in the way of potency/ being-at-work, which is to say, all beings are held together by the logos which casts them in a certain constellation. Thus, it is in this way that I argue that there inheres within physei-beings a kind of ``as structure,'' an ``as structure'' which lights up or brings forth certain comportments that belong to the beings themselves in accordance with their formula (logos). It belongs to the place of a physei-being to possess an outlying periphery of potencyöa periphery that nevertheless belongs to the ``there'' of this beingöfrom which some potential comportment becomes ushered forth and brought into the light as this or that particular work (ergon). One might wonder if the introduction of potencyöand the ``as structure'' that it makes possibleöas a way of describing the being of a natural being generates a problem for the previous chapter's arguments surrounding the continuity of circular motion and its relation to the logos, qua form, of a given being. After all, did we not shape the ``what something keeps on being in order to be at all,'' the to ti en einai, to re£ect the continuity of circular motion, and did we not argue that circular motion, despite being motion, possesses no potency, but already is fully and actively what it is? In answer to this possible question, we must recall that, for Aristotle, rectilinear motionsömotions that are not circular, though still owe their continuity to circular motionöbelong to things that ``come along with'' (sumbebeªkos) that which the being most primarily is; that is to say, motion belongs to categories that are incidental to the being of this being. This is not to say that they somehow are not. For Aristotle, categories, as we saw at the outset of this project, are. But doctoring and housebuilding are qualitative changes belonging incidentally to the being of a being. Thus, the ``as structure'' is. Moreover, the logos of physei-beings contains it and arrays the categoriesötheir motions and their ``as'' potentialöback to ousia, as we saw above. Yet it remains for us to consider how human beings relate to this ``as structure.'' If, as we said in Chapter Two, each being's nature betrays a unique motion, and this book seeks to think through reason in nature, then we need to attend to human nature most of all. After all, human beings are the beings whose nature it is to be in accordance with logos. Human nature culminates in a most distinctive motion: that belonging to rationality or logos. And, as we will see, human rationality betrays a curious relationship to potency in nature, qua ``as structure.''

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2.

The dunamis of logos in anthropoi

Above we have o¡ered a reading of what presents itself in the physical description of a physei-being, a physei-being that is in the way of potency/being-atwork. For Aristotle, in the investigation of any given being of nature, we argued, there is a power or capacity (powers or capacities) that remains in latency and does not show itself in the presentation of this being, but nevertheless must be said to be. As such, we interpreted the ontological ``place'' of the being (what it means for that being to be ``there'') to resemble a structure more like a constellation or an array than a fully present substance. A being, thus, is a gathering of potencies and works that, on the one hand, keeps the being in motion and change and, on the other hand, reveals a web of logos/logoi which holds the being together as the being that it is, a web which reaches into latency to maintain the continuity of the relation of potency and being-at-work. Part of the phenomenal e¡ect of this constellation, however, is that physei-beings show up and reveal themselves as other. It belongs to these beings of nature to a¡ect certain comportments while holding others in latency. Moreover, this ``as structure'' belongs to their natural gathering, to their form-ula insofar as they are held together in their natural structure as beings that are in dunamis/energeia. Yet, there remains a question about the visibility of these potencies. How do humans sense them? We can speak of planets arrayed in relation to the sun in such a way that they hide something in darkness, while revolving something else into the light of the sun, but what we are describing in the phenomenon of sensing something held in latency is the sensuous perception of something not ``there''öin any commonly accepted way of speaking about something ``being there''öas if it were ``there.'' Indeed, for Aristotle, as I have said, this is a way that something is, qua dunamis/energeia. To return to one of Aristotle's favorite examples (an example that really does not apply to natural beings, but one that Aristotle often gives anyway), what occurs in the phenomenon of housebuilding? In a moment of urgent need for shelter, for example, a human being might ¢nd herself standing in a clearing before a forest. If one remains strictly within the experience of aisthesis as de¢ned by Aristotle, then one opens one's eyes and sees what presents itself before one. But what is it (ti esti) that one sees? What is standing most immediately before one doing the sort of thing it does that de¢nes what it is is a tree, or better, a forest. As such, it might be ``an obstacle,'' if one needed to carry buckets of water through it; or perhaps it might be seen as a refreshing space to escape the heat of the sun. There are numerous possibilities for how the forest can be seen, numerous possibilities determined and displayed in accordance with the contiguity of the potencies of ``human'' and ``forest.'' Yet, in this situation of need, the house-builder with house-building know-how will see ``a house'' in potency. That is to say, she will see the forest as wood which is for the sake of a house. The human possesses the power to gather a being in its potencies before herself in order then to sense these potencies and take hold of themösensuously and intellectuallyöfor the sake of some telos. Humans have the power to gather a being's potency-array for the sake of

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deliberation, an array which is otherwise in latency and hidden from aisthesis. By rationally gathering something not ``there'' in immediate apprehensionö something nevertheless belonging to a being by natureöhumans cast a being into the structure of a potential for-the-sake-of-which. In this case, the housebuilder opens her eyes and sees the forest ``as'' wood for-the-sake-of a potential shelter. But with what power do humans see something ``as'' something? How does the ``as structure'' in which a being is come to be intuited? Aristotle is quite clear that this activity is not simple aisthesis. In Nicomachean Ethics, for example, Aristotle describes the way we achieve areªte in opposition to the way that we achieve aisthesis. I want to employ this example to show, on the one hand, why the perception of the ``as structure'' cannot be simple aisthesis for Aristotle (indeed, we will see that we require our human power of reason [logos] as a gathering power to grasp potencies in beings) and, on the other hand, that the intuition of the ``as structure'' is aided by the light provided by areªte and etha (these can of course be either virtues or vices). Here, in the Ethics, Aristotle argues that virtues are not acquired by nature. If that were so, humans would possess a potency for this or that particular virtue, and would simply go to work knowing (episteªmeª ) or house-building (techneª ) or deciding well ( phroneªsis). ``From this,'' Aristotle writes, it is clear that none of the virtues comes to be present in us by nature, since none of the things that are by nature can be habituated to be otherwise; for example, a stone, which by nature falls downward, could not be habituated to fall upward . . . this very thing is obvious in the case of the senses, for it was not from repeatedly seeing or repeatedly hearing that we took on the senses, but on the contrary, having them we used them. (Altered translation, 1103 a 20 ¡.)27 If one is born with the potency for eyesight, one simply opens one's eyes and enacts that potency by seeing.28 But virtuous comportments (etha) are di¡erent: they not only are acquired and enacted in a di¡erent manner, they also disclose beings in the world di¡erently. On the one hand, they require a comportment that is already at-work, not one that is in potency like that of seeing. Rather, humans, by nature,29 hold the potency to imitate and thereby acquire these active comportments conducted in their surrounding world, in their periechon; humans hold the potency to be moved to ``take on'' comportments that are atwork around them.30 At some point, Aristotle thinks that these comportments are no longer repetitions, but rather they become part of one's natureöthey become habituated and one's own. In the case of techneª, for instance, one acquires the virtuous comportment to perform some techneª-activity wellölet us say, ``house-building.'' In the above mentioned manner, one imitates the actions of good house-builders and one is able subsequently to take on that virtuous disposition oneself. One becomes a good house-builder. It becomes part of one's nature, so to speak. The human is gathered before herself in such a way as to possess the power of house-building. It has been incorporated into one's nature.

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And in this way, a human being's nature betrays the formula of a house-builder. As such, the human being can see things that they could not see before. This logos that has shaped the human being lights up the world in a new way. It enables a person to comport herself in such a manner as to disclose beings in the world in light of a speci¢c virtue and for-the-sake-of-which. When one a¡ects the disposition toward a being in the way of techneª, one discloses that being in light of some for-the-sake-of-which that lies within its realm of potency. One uncovers the forces (dunameis) that lie in latency under the display of the being in question. For example, the human with house-building power a¡ects the comportment toward the forest in the moment of need and sees the potency for a house on display. It is not something that is grasped solely in aisthesis, but rather, human logos gathers that potency before aisthesis to be grasped. As such, logos seems to be a kind of organ for the sensation of potency. Reason enables humans to see things that are not otherwise visible. In particular, logos gathers the web of possibility surrounding ``the there'' of any given being. For the sake of clarity, allow me to reformulate this last point: the nature of the human, qua logos-employing being, enables humans to gather before themselves through the light achieved by speci¢c logos comportments (virtues and vices) the potency-array of natural beings. It enables human beings to see potencies held in latency, potencies that will ful¢ll requirements so that one may e¡ect those potencies for the sake of certain ends. Aristotle con¢rms this power of human logos in the chapter containing the de¢nition of motion in the Physics, a passage we have quoted earlier for a di¡erent purpose. That this is motion [the entelecheia of whatever is potentially, as potency] is clear from this: when the buildable, just insofar as we say (legomen) it to be such, is fully at-work, it is being built and this is the activity of building. A similar formulation applies to the activities of learning, healing, rolling, leaping, ripening, and aging. (My italics, 201 a 15) Here, speaking (legomen) most clearly indicates a deep connection between logos and the intuition of a potency inherent in the being of some other being.31 Aristotle does not mean to say that the activity of building is only building just when we say something is buildable. He does not mean to say that the ripening of a tomato is only ripening when a human names a natural being as ripenable. Rather, logos, as should be all too clear by now, must be thought di¡erently and often wider than speech (and speech, in the texts of Aristotle, must be conceived in light of this broader understanding and derived from it). I want to argue that legein here means something like ``insofar as we `gather,' '' so that the passage reads ``insofar as we gather the potency-array belonging to rocks and stones and see them as for-the-sake-of this particular activity: namely, building.'' When our house-builder above stumbles upon the forest, thanks to the know-how she has acquired and which has established itself within her as a disposition and comportment, she is able to gather (legein) the potency of the wood in front of her and see a house in potency. The techneª structures her soul

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and lights up the world and the materials so that she may intuit the being's potency-array. This is what Aristotle means by speaking or reasoning here: the gathering which is for the sake of deliberating possibilities. Moreover, in light of this presentation, we might say that right reason (orthos logos) is the gathering which is for the sake of deliberating possibilities, a gathering which is in-formed or lit-up by the best possible standards and authorityöthat is to say, a gathering brought into display by areteª. In addition, I do not want to limit this presentation of human gathering (legein) to witnessing the potency of a being only for the sake of techneª. With regard to motions, humans articulate the potencies that belong to beings also as ``learning, healing, rolling, leaping, ripening, and ageing,'' among presumably many others. Moreover, observing our potencies in their contiguous relation with the potencies of other beings, and perceiving the potential result of these motions in interaction, we can make other observations. If we retain the example of ``the forest,'' we see how lighting up the forest in the comportment of phroneªsis can display ``the forest'' in such a way as to reveal its potency to be ill-equipped to withstand the demands that humans place on it. We can see the forest in its potency as extinct, as simply overwhelmed, and unable to reproduce at the speed necessary to maintain itself in the face of what must, subsequent to this visibility, be termed ``excess'' logging. In this way, then, human nature shapes and arrays what is perceived. Or better, human nature enables human beings to perceive potency in a way that does not belong to non-logos having beings. If the reader will recall book seven of the Nicomachean Ethics, s/he will no doubt recall the passage in chapter one in which Aristotle argues that not only do virtues and vices not belong to children and brutes32 (they are beings that do not have logos, and thus, do not have the capacity for either proairesis33 or deliberative action [ praxis]), but virtues and vices also do not belong to Gods. ``[F]or just as in a brute there can be neither vice nor virtue, so in a god, but the disposition of a god would be more honorable than virtue'' (Apostle's translation, 1145 a 25). It would appear that a being that is in such a way as the divine does not deliberate, does not act in the form of praxis, does not sense potency, but perceives everything exactly as it is: fully at-work. Perhaps this is an indication that the divine does perceive the beings of nature in dunamis and energeia, but always precisely in accordance with that being's nature. We can perhaps say that the perception of the divine is the achievement of a kind of unity with the being perceived. This is, after all, what it means to perceive something in accordance with that something's nature. As such, the life of the divine might appear to us as rather boring. Such a life a¡ords no change and no surprise. It is a life without potency. Yet humans can sense potency. One might say that it belongs to human nature, to being-aware in the way that belongs to ``our'' nature, that opens up the realm of potency to our perception. For, as we know from what we have achieved so far, nature is an archeª of motion. And this observation made in conjunction with that of the Nicomachean Ethicsöthat the work of the human, or its unique motion, is that in accordance with logos (1098 a 8), tells us that it is the nature of the human being to perform its living in accordance with logos. In light of the developments

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of the ¢rst chapter, therefore, we can say that animals and children, not possessing original reasoning, do not possess the power to be aware of a being in accordance with its nature; they have no way to break out of their nature in order to a¡ect a disposition in which they may perceive a being in accordance with its own nature. This is to say, of course, that for Aristotle children and animals can in no way achieve a comportment toward ``the other,'' as ``other.'' Children and animals always perceive in accordance with their own nature, and thus do not have the capacity to open themselves in such a way as to be aware (gnosis) of a being in accordance with that being's nature. For them, the perception of another being always remains in accordance with the prouparchousa gnoªsis. On the part of the divine, we can say that the mark of the divine's nature is to perceive a being in such a way as to be aware of that being precisely as it is in accordance with its nature. As such, divine perception can be said to be uni¢ed with the being. Moreover, every being that perceives a being through this divine comportment perceives it exactly the same, not as other than itself. There inheres within this way of seeing no di¡erence. Humans, on the other hand, are able to open themselves through their rational power, e¡ectively moving from a comportment toward a being in accordance to human nature (logos as prouparchousa gnoªsis) into a comportment toward a being in accordance with its nature (the disclosure of the full array [logos] of the being). As such, humans have the power to a¡ect a disposition toward a being that perceives its otherness. Through the prouparchousa gnoªsis, a human being is able to sense a being's potency-array and gather before itself the logos of the being. In accordance with Chapter One, we can say that the bringing-before-ourselves of this logos enables us to break out of our limitations through deliberations (logoi) in order then to display the being before us in accordance to its own nature, simultaneously perceiving the being as other and, in fact, preserving its otherness thereby. In this way we see that human perception of potency clearly plays a crucial role in human rational disclosure, both in scienti¢c as well as in ethical actions. Thus, rationality (conceived in light of the development so far) subtends even the aisthesis of the human being. Yet Aristotelian rationality, while it shapes perception, does not do so with disembodied concepts of consciousness. Rather, it gathers before perception the potency-array of the being undergoing aisthesis, a potency-array belonging to that being by nature, themselves lit up and brought into view by certain virtuous or vicious dispositions. Yet it remains to speak about the motion belonging to logos. For logos is not personal, it is not individualöthere is not a single meaningful word that is utterable that is not already a repetition. Yet there is a way that we can speak of original utterances. How does the human repetitive logos relate to the original logos? What is the nature of logos? How does the motion of logos show itself ? These and other questions pertaining to logos we will consider presently.

Chapter Four

On the Nature of Reason1

Although the Logos is shared, most men live as though their thinking were a private possession. Heraclitus2 In the previous chapter, we have provided a reading of the way that the logos of nature reveals itself in natural beings both as being-at-work and, most curiously, in potency. The structure of the being of natural beings was shown to display itself in both of these modes; or better, a being which takes a stand in its own place, which reveals itself as present, obtains in its being-there not merely as if it were a point upon a line; rather we saw that, for Aristotle, there is much to the being that recedes into the periphery as well. In order to bring this structure more clearly into view, we employed the analogy of a constellation. Beings of physis show themselves in the manner of an array, a natural array according to which the beings (categories) which make up a being are gathered into continuous orbits, some of which move into the light, while others are eclipsed and recede into the periphery. As such, we argued, quoting Aristotle, that this structure of gathering remains within the meaning-horizon of logos insofar as it is the form-ula of the natural being under inquiry; that is to say, that the logos of a natural being can be articulated as the primary constitutive array of thinghood. Moreover, we saw that all beings (both incidental beings and ousia) betray this logos structure; ``for everything has/holds the logos of ousia'' (1045 b 25). As a consequence of this argument, we concluded that all beings that are in the way of potency/being-at-work possess an as structure, a structure of possibility in which something displays itself as being at-work as something while holding other potencies in reserve or in latency. Subsequent to the articulation of the as structure inhering within beings of nature, we turned our argument to the way that human logos, qua rationality, relates to the as structure belonging to natural beings. Human rationality, we argued, opens up humans to sensing the potency of other beings. That is to say, human rationality gathers the array of a being before itself in such a way that it may sense things about these beings which may not otherwise be at-work and present, but lying in latency (for instance, we spoke of the house-builder sensing the ``house-building materials'' for the sake of a house in the ``forest'' displayed before her). Moreover, we said that virtue, vice, and other habituated comportments were involved with rationality in lighting up potencies for the sake of visibility: human reason and

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disposition display something ``as'' something; logos gathers the form-ula before us and enables us to grasp something about the being in light of some, hopefully, virtuous comportment. Now I would like to bring everything that we have discussed back to the question of nature, and speci¢cally, the question of nature as an archeª of motion. However, this time, I want to speak of the motion ruled over and governed by human nature. More precisely, I want to raise the question of the unique motion that belongs to human life, a motion that indicates human nature. If our nature lies in logos, then we must say that logos is somehow crucially related to how it is that a human being moves. Thus, if logos subtends human nature, and human nature is an archeª for the unique works and motions of human beings, then what is the unique motion of the human being? Our considerations in the previous chapter revealed an important capacity of the human being that will help us in answering this question: as we recalled above, in Chapter Three, we saw that human logos gathers a being's potency-array before us in light of our etha (comportments) which disclose beings so that they may be grasped for the sake of some action. Thus, human logos and human ethics (thought broadly)3 are brought into a relationship of deep intimacy in posing the question of human nature and the motions it displays. To begin, then, I will o¡er an account of the human acquisition of logos in part one. I will argue that virtues and vices are acquired and a¡ected by human beings in the same way as logos. As such, we will o¡er an account of the motions belonging to the phenomenon of human habituation, or the motion of becoming human of human nature. Of course, all along our reading will recall those arguments from Chapter Two where we o¡ered our interpretation of physical motion; for, in this way, I will secure my book-wide argument that the ethical treatises must be read through the physical treatises, or at least not without them. Understanding how human beings acquire logos and how they are habituated will enable us to consider more carefully how human beings move in accordance with their most distinguished nature. For it is through the motions involving logos that human nature most shows itself. One way that we can consider this sort of motion, the way we raised in both Chapters One and Two above, is through the comportments involved in epagoge, or human discovery. Human beings move from a comportment toward a being which a¡ords an awareness of that being in accordance with human nature to a comportment toward a being which a¡ords an awareness of that being in accordance with that being's nature. As we have seen in Chapter Two, one of the ways this motion shows itself is through the activity of de¢nition. Therefore, in part two of this chapter, we will o¡er a reading of the motion of discovery in light of ethics/politics in order to set the stage for the claim that ethics and politics, qua virtue, are the motions that belong most primordially to human nature. Or, more provocatively, we shall argue that virtue is physis. Moreover, in part two, we shall see that, since virtue is physis, human physis, vice must be opposed to nature. I will argue that a¡ecting a comportment toward the world, oneself, and others in the way of virtue

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reveals a certain continuity with nature, while disclosing oneself in the way of vice toward the world, oneself, and others is a decisive action opposing nature and, therefore, a disposition in which one alienates oneself from nature and makes nature an enemy. If we concur that human nature is virtue for Aristotle, then making an enemy of nature is precisely the action of making an enemy of oneself, insofar as the one undertaking such an action is a human and remains subject to his or her nature. Finally, part two will consider the role of circular motion in human nature. How does human nature relate to that ¢rst of all and most complete of all motions? I would argue that, again, virtue, qua human nature, reveals itself as an activity that should be read as the circular motion that secures the being of the human being, derivative of the motion of the spheres. In order to accomplish this however, we will need to o¡er a reading of, on the one hand, hexis and, on the other hand, energeia. The former will need to be addressed since Aristotle lists it as merely one of the incidental categories in the Categories. Such a claim poses a problem for us, insofar as we must wonder how we can place such primary emphasis on a mere incidental category? Regarding energeia, we will have to answer the question foreshadowed in Chapter Twoöthat is, how can we claim that energeia is circular motion, when, in the Metaphysics, Aristotle explicitly denies that energeia is motion (book nine, 1048 b 30)? For now, however, let us begin by considering the motion of becoming human.

1.

Acquiring human nature

In the course of reading book one of the Nicomachean Ethics, we ¢nd that Aristotle increasingly and paradoxically complicates the logos-having region of the psyche. On the one hand, we are told that logos shows itself in its proper sense as ``logos in activity [energeia]'' (1098 a 7); that is to say, we understand by this mode of having logos a certain rational capacity and, therefore, a unique and original employment of, active engagement in, or being-at-work of logos. Logos most fully at-work would therefore betray an individual human being's most unique nature, qua rational being. Yet, on the other hand, Aristotle observes that having logos also means ``listening'' to logos; or, rather, it means that there is a part of the soul that ``participates'' or ``shares'' (metechousa, 1102 b 15) in logos insofar as it ``may obey reason'' or rather ``may be persuaded by reason'' (epipeitheis, 1098a5), ``like a son listening to his father'' (1103 a 5¡.).4 Thus, he establishes not only a hierarchy of primacy in the soul of the two parts of reason (one logos ``listens'' to the other, whose decisive nature lays down ``the law,'' as it were)öa hierarchy that will later become problematic, if not altogether called into questionöbut also these two parts constitute a passive and active logos-having part of the soul. Initially, Aristotle's description of what I am here calling the active logos might not seem very striking, but rather ordinary and self-evident, especially given our modern predilection to acceptö as either a divine gift or selective evolutionöan innate and autonomous logos

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(otherwise commonly translated as ``reason'' through the Latin ratio). However, we must remember that Aristotle's logos is not innate, but, in fact, it is something of a hexis,5 or habitual disposition, and must be acquired accordinglyöthat is, with practice and repetition.6 Thus, one may only have logos through listening, repeating, and obeying the other logoi that become articulated around one; only through the passive being-open to the absorption of a logos of a surrounding community can one gain a logos of one's own, can one act with logos. Indeed, for Aristotle, without a surrounding community of logoi, the human actually lacks the potential and power to become a human, to become what it is.7 Thus, we begin to see the initial intricacy of the problem: how can there be a logos of one's own, if every so-called original utterance is ¢rst and foremost a repetition? What does it mean to have an autonomous energeia in logos? What occurs in the transformation from ``repeating'' to ``being-at-work''? While we are directing our attention here more speci¢cally toward the coming to be of logos, this problem comes to terms in Aristotle's account within the much broader horizon of human ethics in general. For Aristotle, human disposition, human comportment, and all virtues emerge in the same repetitive, habitual way as logos, if not somehow even more intimately generated by and through logos itself. We might argue that the human being, qua human, derives its very self from the surrounding logos-worldöits human habits, knowledge, perhaps even an individual human's self-propelling motivations.8 Earlier, in Chapter One, we began to elucidate the surrounding logos-world as the prouparcousa gnoªsis. In the context of a discourse on comportments and habits, we can imagine the already-governing and -subtending awareness as a kind of atmosphere in which individual human beings are enveloped, an atmosphere which surrounds, informs, and even preserves the human being that inhabits it. Thus, I will begin by calling attention to the points at which these two apparently separate logoi converge. That is to say, I want to pose the question of how, for Aristotle, logos shows itself, on the one hand, as a surrounding world of dispositions and habitsöa surrounding world that pushes individual humans into the repetitions of these habits in such a way that human beings become a kind of o¡spring of the prouparchousa gnoªsis. Yet, on the other hand, equiprimordially with this embracing and in-forming horizon, we must grant and give expression to the possibility of a certain transformation that equally de¢nes the human, qua logos-having creature, a metabolizing, motive potential inherent in human nature (and derived from the prouparchousa gnoªsis) that enables a kind of cell-division and splitting-o¡ of an organ of logos from the general body of the in-forming logos (a self-di¡erentiating power which we shall see is simultaneously undergone and carried out by this very logos itself ); that is, there must be decisiveness, a cutting away from the general to make individual decision and responsibility possible. But can this scalpel of decision (logos) actually make a clean separation if it is itself an image of that from which it must become free (logos)? Of course, another way to pose this question would employ the analogy of the polis: can a citizen possessed of decisive rationality step outside of the structure of rationality that has formed him? Can the citizen

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employ the reason derived from the polis in order to a¡ect a critical comportment toward the polis if even that critical comportment is something derived from the city? In the wake of this manner of discussing the development and deployment of logos within a citizen through and as its relation to the citizenry, we will see that, before reason becomes a topic for epistemological or psychological investigation (insofar as these are viewed as topics outside political consideration), for Aristotle, logos is ¢rst and foremost an ethical/political question. For the most part, I will maintain my focus on the ethical and political works for their careful emphasis on these questions and as a way of casting light on the phenomenon of what I here call the transformation of logos into logos. Yet, at the same time, along the way I will refer back to arguments that we have made regarding what constitutes natural motion in our elucidations of Aristotle's physical works. For, as I have said, it seems to me that human nature will be most fully illuminated by attending to Aristotle's words on the conditions of motion in all of physis.9 In order to understand better how logos shows itself as a comportment (ethos) of the human being, we need to gain a better grasp of the capacity of the human soul to acquire logos. Above, we said that, for Aristotle, one of the two ways in which the soul has logos shows itself in a rather passive manner, ``like a son listening to his father.'' More speci¢cally, Aristotle writes: The vegetative part ( phutikon) in no way takes part in reason, while the appetitive (epithumeªtikon) part and, in general, the part which desires (orektikon)10 does take part [in reason] in some way, namely, insofar as it listens to or obeys it . . . If one should say that this part [the desiring/appetitive part], too, has reason, then also the expression ``that which has reason'' would have two senses: a) that which has reason in itself, this being the principal sense, and b) that which listens to reason, like a child listening to a father. (1102 b 30 ¡.) On the one hand, Aristotle speaks of a part of the soul that does not take part in logos, but rather concerns itself only with nutritive functions. It makes sense that desiring faculties of the soul would participate in these functions, insofar as the nutritive urge to sustain life would drive the soul and body to acquire the resources needed to maintain basic, vegetative existence. Yet, on the other hand, there is a way in which the desiring faculties also participate in reason; that is, for Aristotle, the desiring soul of the human is also compelled toward a non-nutritive worldöa world ¢lled with satisfying potential over and beyond that of the nutritive function. At least in part, both the epithumeªtikon and the orektikon ¢nd themselves directed or conducted toward this world by logos. Here, we understand that this particular part of the soul must be £uent in logos, insofar as it is capable of understanding what sort of demands the active logos is placing upon it. On my reading, that Aristotle refers to this logos-having portion of the soul as both the ``epithumeªtikon'' and ``orektikon'' has important consequences for the capacity of the soul to acquire logos in the ¢rst place; for this is precisely that part of the soul in which the responsibility lies for making manifest a kind of

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potential for consumption, drawing-in, or alimentation that does not necessarily show itself as vegetative. That is to say, in addition to a certain capacity to be conducted by logosöwhich means carrying within itself the potential to read the score provided by reason11öthe desiring parts of the soul also move the soul and body towards a compelling satisfaction and (even) self-constitution in and through these exterior objects of desire, objects themselves not strictly nutritive, but rather much more broadly articulated as ``needed for harmony.'' If the satisfaction of nutritive objects does not necessarily (or, perhaps, exclusively) lead one toward eudaimonia,12 then human alimentation also ¢nds its ful¢llment in satisfying its desire for objects with a di¡erent meaning and purpose. In a broad sense, I want to call these ``objects'' logos-revolving. With the desiring part of the soul, we take hold of and breathe in the logos-world; one might say that we sponge it upöit is like an organ which reaches out of itself to grasp its environment, its world, its place, its identity. Yet, perhaps this movement of desiring logos, that here resembles nothing less than identity constitution, becomes more accurately expressed if we say that our desire for the worldöat least most primordially at an early stage of world/logos-acquisitionö¢nds its satisfaction and desirous ful¢llment in being touched, grasped, and formed by the world; rather than a desirous reason stretching out its organ in order to reach toward and take hold of its world, perhaps the movement expressed here shows itself more like a world inscribing itself uponöand thus forming and constitutingöan identity after the world's own shape, in the world's own image, with the world's own script; the motion of identity constitution would thereby ¢nd its origin outside of itself, in the periechon. The primordiality ascribed here to the desiring parts of the soul in acquiring (or perhaps being acquired by) the surrounding logos-world, the prouparchousa gnoªsisöits cultural habits, norms, and virtues, as well as its accepted sciences and languageö¢nds its most assertive articulation in Magna Moralia. But, in order to understand what is at stake in this passage, we need to recognize more clearly a distinction (a distinction not articulated within the following lines by Aristotle) between what we earlier called a logos which has the kind of being of ``being-at-work'' and the desiring of and for logos which we have been developing in the last few pages. Here, Aristotle claims that the passions (patheª), at least in original habit acquisition, are ¢rst (archai) in directing the soul toward virtue: We may state without any quali¢cation that, contrary to the opinions of the others [philosophers], logos is not the leader and archeª of areªte, but rather the passions are. For, ¢rst of all, there must needs arise (as we know there actually does) an unreasoning impulse towards what is noble and good, afterwards logos must give its vote and verdict . . . This is seen in the case of children and other unreasoning beings. In them there arise at ¢rst unreasoning impulses of the passions towards noble aims; not till afterwards does logos supervene . . . passion, if in right condition, has more claim than logos to be the original motive force (archeª ) which inclines us to Virtue. (Modi¢ed from original translation, 1206 b 20 ¡.)13

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Here we see that contrary to the human being born with logos and then employing logos to direct the soul toward virtuous action, the desiring parts of the soul actually are drawn toward virtue in advance, before logos (as one's own or energeia) has the opportunity or capacity to direct desire. The example Magna Moralia employs is that of a child's urge toward virtuous aims. But, how would desire be directed to a logos-grounded structure like virtuous action without the aid of ``reason'' (logos as energeia)? I want to interpret this problem in light of the above discussion; that is, I would argue that the ``listening'' part of the soul ¢rst and foremost seeks to satisfy its passion to be touched by the logos-world. Desire's ful¢llment and satisfaction of this impulse ¢nds its achievement in the repetition of the actions of the surrounding world. That is to say, a youth's capacity to desire logos-structures (habits [ethoi ], speech [logos], perhaps even thinking [dianoia]) compels her to repeat the actions and phrases occurring in her midst. Thus, if a child ¢nds itself born within an environment conducive to virtuous action, the desirous parts of the soul make it possible for this child to be shaped by noble aims, and ultimately, to be much more likely to acquire a logos (as energeia) already well disposed toward excellence and, subsequently, eudaimonia. Considering the earlier claims we made regarding the prouparchousa gnoªsis, we are not surprised by these suggestions of Nicomachean Ethics and Magna Moralia. For human beings are born into an already-governing and -subtending awareness; and it is the coming-to-be-in-the-soul of this awareness that we have been articulating above. On the one hand, the child has the capacity and the desire to take in more than simply the vegetative world of sustenance and it possesses the capacity to be aware of more beings than those that will satisfy the requirements of self-maintenance and self-reproduction. On the other hand, it is not born with these other ``objects'' in place, but ¢nds itself surrounded by them: these are comportmentsöhabits, knowledge, techneª, pleasures, among other socially engendered comportments, for which the soul strives. In its striving, in its stretching-itself-out toward the awareness of them, the soul becomes appropriated by them. The human being repeats and imitates the already-governing and -subtending awareness that becomes e¡ected and enacted in its presence. The world becomes disclosed for the child by being lit up by the prouparchousa gnoªsis, enabling the child to a¡ect a familiar disposition to the world. As we have already suggested in Chapter One, the place of the prouparchousa gnoªsis is quite di¤cult to point toward. Where is it? Does the English language lie in England? Many places on the earth speak the English language as mother tongue, as the primary language with which the world becomes disclosed for them. Moreover, much occurs in the English language in, say, India (in the ways of action and comportment) that might not be even recognizable at all in England. Thus, we could not locate the prouparchousa gnoªsis for Indian English speakers in England. Moreover, we could not even locate it within Indian individuals. To be sure, they do represent the awareness, having been appropriated by it; perhaps we can even say that the individual human beings surrounding the child with their actions and words represent, each one, ¢nite representations

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of the already-subtending and -governing awareness, but, still, no single person can be the source of the prouparchousa gnoªsis. How, then, can we articulate the place of it? Perhaps we should say, in light of our previous chapter, that it does indeed admit of being, but it admits of being in potency. The prouparchousa gnoªsis envelops a child and surrounds the place of the child in potency. If the child is born with the appropriate sensuous organs,14 the already-subtending and -governing awareness will inscribe itself upon the child, bespeaking the world (physis and nomos) into the child through the works, words, and activities of the humans in the child's midst. Thus, we have made visible a motion of the early formation of a human being, for Aristotle: out of a human in potency (the prouparchousa gnoªsis) emerges a particular, original repetition of a human being.15 Yet the ``acquisition'' of logos as energeia requires more than simply listening to and then repeating the logos-world. Maintaining our argument that logos acquisition has the same structure as virtue acquisition, we can understand Aristotle's claim that a certain transformation must occur in order for a person to be said to have virtue (or logos), a transformation from the simple repetition of the habits in one's midst into the having-of-virtue such that it becomes part of one's physis16 which is the same as to say that one moves and shows oneself in accordance with this change. In Nicomachean Ethics, book seven, Aristotle makes this very point in discussing incontinent men who sometimes repeat actions which are taken to be virtuous and also speak with what is taken to be genuine knowledge. ``The fact that such men make scienti¢c statements when so disposed,'' he writes: is no sign that they know what they are saying; for even those under the in£uence of passions [those which can listen to the world around them, but which don't have virtue or a well-disposed logos in the active sense, even these] recite demonstrations and verses of Empedocles, and also beginners [in argument] string together statements, but they do not quite understand what they are saying, for these expressions must become gathered into their physis (sumphyenai ), and this requires time. So, incontinent men must be regarded as using language in the way that actors do on the stage. (My alteration and italics, 1147 a 18 ¡.) On the one hand, humans who are under the compulsion of a poorly directed desire have the capacity to listen to the general logoi around them and sense what would be perceived as proper action; they are perfectly capable of gathering logoi, habits, and sentiments from this environment and then reciting them as ``actors upon a stage.'' But these humans do not carry the archai of their logoi, habits, and sentiments within themselves, but rather re£ect the community back to itself like an actor reading a script. On the other hand, the di¡erence here articulated between the mirroring logos of desire and the working logos that ``knows what it is saying''17 tells us something about the general transformation that constitutes the de¢nition given by Aristotle of the human being; that is, it speaks precisely of the transformation of the (listening/dunamis) logos into the

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(energeia) logos. In fact, the discussion of akrasia seems a well-suited place to situate this argument, since the problem of akrasia seems to be one of not yet fully holding and being shaped by human nature. Egkrateia can not be an areªte for Aristotle, for the hexis has not been fully gathered into one's physis, insofar as one knows what would bring harmony, but desire is not yet correct18öone feels compelled by desire to act in such a way that will not bring harmony.19 In other words, in egkrateia, reason knows, but desire does not know; reason knows what would be excellent, while desire remains directed against excellence. Whereas in areªte, reason and desire are continuous and of one nature; reason and desire are uni¢ed in being compelled toward excellent action.20 The transformation may therefore be articulated in the following way: while, for Aristotle, children and other creatures might very well have the capacity to repeat logoi, the archeª of their speech can be said to originate in the community around themöin the periechon tou logou;21 it ¢rst resounds within a surrounding which envelops the child, making the child one of its own. Yet, after time, maturity, and much listening and repeating, a transformation occurs within the very physis of the child; the power of logos moves into the child, such that the archeª resides within the newly constituted (logos-having) human. This is not to say, however, that every articulation of the newly logos-endowed human shows itself as absolutely original and private; after all, the constitution of the human occurred precisely in logos and all meaningful words will always in a certain sense be a repetition of that constituting structure. But the archeª has now, at least in part, moved into the constituted and given him/her the potential to express his/her own nature (qua logos-having being), as well as to critique, wonder, and be inspired by itö for the logos-having human, the expression of one's nature is the experience ( pathos) of it, or rather the expression (logos) of one's nature is the uniquely human sensation of it, insofar as we understand logos to make possible a kind of aisthesis unique to the human being. Here, we are confronted by a number of questions. On the one hand, we must attempt to make sense of this unusual movement of the arche. On the other hand, we must ask what it means to have the power to express one's nature with the very structure that constitutes one's nature. Even more, what does it mean to carry the potential to critique one's nature with the very structure that constitutes one's nature? We shall pursue these questions in section two through considering the circular motion of the human being.

2.

The circular motion of human nature

If, as we said in Chapter Two, each being of nature possesses a unique nature which shapes and determines all of its motions, including its being-at-work; and, if the being-at-work that belongs most primarily to each kind of being Aristotle calls the to ti en einai (what that being keeps on being in order to be at all), then it would appear that we could argue that being-at-work is a kind of circular motion. For to ti en einai betrays a relation to circular motion insofar as it

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bespeaks something that a being must be doing continuously in order to remain the kind of being that it is; even the very grammar of to ti en einai re£ects circular motion.22 Thus, a being's to ti en einai may be called a being's ``essence'' only insofar as we understand by this term a most primary23 activityöit is the ¢rst de¢ning activity of a being and it is that activity for the sake of which this being is: it is the motion by which a being preserves its being, while simultaneously the motion is the end of activity; it is the activity from which a being displays what it is, while at the same time it is that toward which this being is moving most primarily: itself. In this section, I will argue that the action of areªte is a human being's to ti en einai. It is that which human beings primarily do in accordance with their natureöcomporting themselves toward the world in such a way that they simultaneously preserve and continuously hold themselves as the beings that they are and achieve the for-the-sake-of-which of this, their de¢ning activity. Yet, as we mentioned within the last paragraphs of the previous section, we will need to di¡erentiate the circular motion from other motions having to do with human nature. We will see that what matters most as a source for this di¡erentiation lies in the comportment one displays in accordance with logos. For instance, one can be disposed toward the prouparchousa gnoªsis in a non-self-re£ective way, simply allowing the already-governing awareness to rule (archoª ). In this way, the archeª of motion (and action) lies within the prouparchousa gnoªsis: the logos of the community takes hold of and shapes the action. Whereas, in the comportment of areªte, not only is the comportment transformed, but the world is too. The world becomes disclosed in accordance with the achieved decision and is transformed in accordance with a deliberate, original action. The world shows itself di¡erently precisely through the selfconscious, critical appropriation of the prouparchousa gnoªsis. As such, the motion of the human being would seem to re£ect precisely the logical motion articulated throughout Aristotle's corpus. Ethics in Aristotle reveals the following motion: humans move from an awareness of the world in accordance with their nature (the habits, norms, and speech of the prouparchousa gnoªsis), to an awareness of the world in accordance with nature: holding oneself (hexis)öa kind of circular motionötoward the world and oneself in harmony with nature, that is to say, virtuously.24 Let us begin to outline the circular motion of the human being by ¢rst making a case for what it is not. Even though human beings would not be human without the prouparchousa gnoªsis;25 and even though there would be no human perception26öand, therefore, no knowledge27öwithout the already-governing awareness; and despite its responsibility for providing the bare conditions for the disclosure of truth,28 being appropriated by the prouparchousa gnoªsis is not, at least not alone, the circular motion of the human being. Firstly, being appropriated by the prouparchousa gnoªsis, as articulated in the ¢rst section of this chapter, only inscribes one with the language and cultural habits and norms that shape the identity of the human being. Even though the potency for the circular motion of the human being is also inscribed upon the human being at the same time, the already-governing awareness is not capable of ``waking'' this capacity

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such that the human being who a¡ects a virtuous disposition may ``know''29 what he or she is doing, rather than simply imitating.30 Secondly, as we pointed out before, Aristotle requires that the archeª for a particular virtuous action be located within the doer (en toª prattonti ) (1110 a 7) if the doer is to claim responsibility and therefore decisively and originally act with virtue. Yet what do we mean by holding the archeª for a particular virtuous action? Aristotle's discussion of proairesis and the voluntary (ekousios) in Nicomachean Ethics might help us bring the relation into relief. In book three of the Ethics, Aristotle employs precisely the language of the place of the archeª to determine the character of choice on the part of the doer and to determine whether one is responsible for the result. Moreover, we should remember that, for Aristotle, only logos-having human beings are capable of action ( praxis), since action is a work requiring logos. Thus, logosöthe de¢ning characteristic of a human beingömust be involved in the act in some way. Here, he wants to know whether the archeª of motion is inside the action of the human being or outside. ``It is thought,'' writes Aristotle, that involuntary things are those which are done by force or through ignorance (dia agnoian); and that is said to be done by force whose archeª is external and is such that the agent who acts or the patient who is acted upon contributes nothing, as in the case of a strong wind which carries a ship o¡ course or the case of men who have us in their power. (Altered translation, 1110 a) At this point of the argument, Aristotle argues that a deed can be considered involuntary if it is compelled by force or performed through ignorance. But, for us, we are centrally interested in the location of the archeª in this claim. Here Aristotle argues that the archeª in force and ignorance lies outside of the actor. Let us contend with force ¢rst. It might otherwise be objected that force is not an example of an action in the aforementioned way, since logos appears to be uninvolved in the example of the wind carrying a ship o¡ course. Yet, with regard to ``men who have us in their power,'' we can very well think of examples in a polis in which human beings often perform deeds under the compulsion of the stateö and there is no state without an already-governing structure of logos. For example, what about individual participation in state-declared warfare? Certainly, we can well imagine a claim from individual citizens called forward to engage in warfareöand perhaps, therefore murder (otherwise conceived as a vice)öthat they cannot be blamed for their actions; for they were, it might be asserted, merely ``in the power'' of those governmental o¤cials who remain the source of this military action. Thus, we can infer from this argument that the archeª for the motion of war lies outside of these individual citizens, exterior to their own reasoning. The deliberation involved, the choice, and the declaration for the act of war, at least in the cited case, remains exterior to the individual citizens, who might remain bound by force, if they themselves view the act unjusti¢ed. Yet, in the situation of war, are we prepared to argue that, without quali¢cation, the individuals remain blameless for the act compelled by force from outside of themselves? No. Aristotle indicates in the above passage and further argues at

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the end of the chapter (1110 b 15) that only those acts of force into which the individual contributes nothing are blameless. But how does the citizen here ``contribute''? For Aristotle, insofar as the citizen is a human being, she maintains her nature by engaging the logos and deciding to act; she must a¡ect a comportment toward the compelling order to engage in war and justify it for herself. The compelling order becomes a motive force, indeed, but a motive force for engaging the deliberative faculties of this individual so that she may originally de-cide;31 which is to say, it provides the impulse to set her into intellectual motion so that she may cut her self away from the already-subtending and -governing order of the polis and either take up the act of war as her own or assert her deliberative claims opposing it. Failing to engage the wakeful comportment of deliberation in accordance with areªte is a failure of human nature, a failure to achieve the most exquisite human motion. As such, individual engagement in state warfare, therefore, could not be a situation in which force, as Aristotle de¢nes it, is involved. Interestingly, given his quali¢cation of force, it would seem that our current example would fall more into what Aristotle called above ``ignorance'' (agnoia), the second means by which the archeª can remain outside of one. There are numerous ways that humans can remain ignorant: among them, one can go insane, or a human can drink oneself into stupidity; in addition, one can be simply unaware; and, perhaps most importantly, one can just ignore something, which is to say, one can remain willfully ignorant: one can choose ignorance.32 Acting through ignorance seems to be di¡erent from acting in ignorance; for he who is drunk or angry is not thought to be acting through ignorance but through one of the causes stated, not being aware of his act but in ignorance of it. Thus every evil man (moxtheªros) is in ignorance of what he should do and what he should abstain from doing, and it is through such error that men become unjust and in general bad . . . choosing ignorance ( proairesei agnoia) of what should be done is a cause not of what is involuntary but of evil (moxtheªrias). (Altered translation, 1110 b 27 ¡.) In the aforementioned example, wherein an individual citizen fails to engage her natural, questioning logos and a¡ect a self-re£ective comportment toward the already-subtending and -governing order which shapes and determines her participation in the act of war, we could say that she acts in ignorance in the worst possible way: allowing the archeª of her action to remain unjusti¢ed and unre£ected; which is to say, she chooses to ignore and, thus, chooses to remain asleep, in a way, since she fails to engage the wakefulness required to truly appropriate the prouparchousa gnoªsis in a re£ective way. Choosing ignorance, then, is the willful allowing of the principle of one's action to lie outside of oneself, in the prouparchousa gnoªsis. That is to say, choosing to remain comfortably at home in the ruling opinions of the day, rather than engaging one's natural independence, one's natural capacity to become a foreigner (logos in energeia) to oneself.

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Modern life seems ¢lled with such ignorance. For example, we are thoroughly dominated by a certain notion of consumerism which demands a most remarkable attention to the price of goods. How often does one hear language saturated with pride at spending much cognitive and physical energy at having found an extremely low price for some such good. Yet we choose to remain ignorant of the plight of the foreign workers who manufactured these goodsö who often live in tyrannies, forced labor camps, and countries without basic labor and labor safety laws. We are capable of enacting our deliberative, rational faculties in order to secure a rationally grounded decision (in this case, it merely involves looking at the ``made in'' tag), but we choose to ignore.33 Thus, indeed, our actions engender an evil fate, as Aristotle implies, for others who su¡er in the act of our ignorance, our willful ignorance. Moreover, one can continue these examples with the obvious lack of rational wakefulness in the American prouparchousa gnoªsis in the light of topics such as the lack of gender equality, civil rights, and the civil and social alienation of gay persons. The fact that, for Aristotle, there could be no inequality or even the notion of ``equality of gender'' without the prouparchousa gnoªsis makes the archeª of ethical action on these matters rather di¤cult to pin-point and place.34 Yet I want to argue that, for Aristotle, a¡ecting a wakeful comportment towards the prouparchousa gnoªsis on these issuesöengaging one's rationality in a dialogue underwritten by a good will to come to the best argument and decision for the polisö remains the only way to secure a polis in eudaimonia, and therefore the only way to a¡ect a comportment in accordance with human nature. Yet how does this happen? How does one a¡ect a knowing comportment toward an event such that the archeª of action lies not solely within the alreadygoverning awareness, but in oneself as a result of a dialogical engagement with that ruling structure? In Chapters One and Two we saw that, in the intellectual disclosure of a natural being, the human being moves from an awareness of a being in accordance with human nature (the prouparchousa gnoªsis) to an awareness of a being in accordance with its nature (de¢nition). Now, I want to argue for a conception of ethical awareness grounded upon the rational disclosure of the ethical situation in essentially the same way. As we saw before, humans become born within an already-governing awareness of things, which shapes the human and bequeaths an identity. Yet, just as there is a logos of the nature of individual things called a de¢nition, there is also something of a uniqueness, a stranger at the heart of every human being; we might call it a foreigner35 within each and every citizen of the city, a foreigner that in the moment of action comes forth for the sake of deliberation. Employing the motion of the previous model from Chapter Two, we can say that ethical motion consists, at ¢rst, of the disclosure of the prouparchousa gnoªsis, the bringing forth before ourselves through the activity of inquiry and consideration what we ourselves already think about a particular action. In an inquiry in which we must rationally justify our action, one would need to lay bare the prouparchousa gnoªsis, to a¡ect a comportment toward the structure of our own awareness in such a way that distinguishes ourselves from it and enables us to step outside of it. This move is, of course, most critical

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to thinking through (dianoia) the eudoxa (or even bad opinions) that already constitute what an individual thinks about the given conditions that set the stage for an action. To borrow from twentieth-century thinking, we a¡ect a comportment of ek-stasis36 in order then to genuinely and wakefully understand what we already believe about something, in order then to employ reason to take a stand, to disclose the arguments of the wise that already shape our awareness of the situation, and then to allow the demands of the particulars to shape our actions. By employing this ``methodology'' well, on the one hand, we are able either to a¤rm or deny the demands of the prouparchousa gnoªsis shaping our actions and, on the other hand, we are able to disclose our relationship to the world in such way that the world becomes uncovered and lit up in an original way. As with the methodology of uncovering the beings of nature, the discovery of excellent dispositions toward living well discloses nature, qua virtue. It is most important to realize that this motion of disclosing the prouparchousa gnoªsis in order then to a¡ect a critical comportment toward it, and the subsequent decision made by incorporating a consideration of the particulars is not solipsistic or subjective but rather dialogical and grounded upon what is, for Aristotle, rationality. Firstly, on Aristotle's view, one engages the logoi of the wise; the logoi of both the many (oi polloi ) and the wise belong to one and become disclosed through this way of inquiry. Secondly, the de-cisions made are simultaneously a response to, a wakeful appropriation of, and a cutting away from the prouparchousa gnoªsis. Moreover, the accomplishment of a good decision completes the circle of this motion by returning to the prouparchousa gnoªsis and contributing to it, shaping it for future humans and future decisions. Also, as Aristotle repeats often, performing this method of bringing the prouparchousa gnoªsis before usöin such a way that we step out of it and think it through before we wakefully make it our own (or challenge it), decide and actöperforming this method and undergoing this motion often and well shapes the soul in such a way that one perceives, feels, and becomes aware of the world in a dependable and secure way: the soul quietens down and achieves a kind of continuous activity displayed as what Aristotle sometimes calls a hexis and at other times calls energeia. On my reading, the circular motion of the human being, the human to ti en einai, becomes brought to language in the Aristotelian corpus as, on the one hand, hexis and, on the other hand, as energeia. I will now turn to a brief account of the textual sources for this interpretation, while simultaneously answering the questions of the aforementioned problems with this reading: namely, how can something incidental to human nature (sumbebeªkos)öhexis is named among the sumbebeªkoi in the Categoriesöhold such a central place in the ``essence'' of the human being. And secondly, given that Aristotle denies that energeia is motion in the Metaphysics, how can we say that being-at-work betrays any motion at all? I will ¢rst work with hexis, insofar as we understand by this term a holding-oneself toward the world and oneself in a virtuous disposition. In light of our manuscript-wide assertion, that the ethical treatises need to be read through the physical treatises, I will o¡er an interpretation of hexis as a

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virtuous disposition of the human being derived from the Physics. For, in book seven of that text, Aristotle addresses the question of the alteration of eidos and hexis. It would seem that the forms (eideª) of natural beings and also their dispositions (hexeis) would come into being and pass away in accordance with alteration. In other words, common opinion has it that alteration is the form of motion in eideª and hexeis. Yet Aristotle says that alteration is present in neither of them. Brie£y, his explanation why forms are not altered into being is: ``in order that each thing come into being, it is perhaps necessary that something be altered, such as the material . . . but it is surely not the things that come into being that are altered, nor is the coming into being of them an alteration'' (246 a 6). For Aristotle, as we have seen earlier, thinghood37 cannot be the object of alteration, rather, here he makes clear that material (huleª ) undergoes alteration. Yet he then goes on to show that hexeis, too, are not alterations, ``neither those of the body nor of the soul'' (246 a 10). By uttering the quali¢cation of neither body nor soul, he draws our interest for at least two reasons. Firstly, the habits and comportments of bodies and souls are brought into a relation of sameness that con¢rms our insistence of the physical subtending the ethical in Aristotle. For him, bodies and natural beings are disposed toward the world as the beings that they are; they do not come into being by being altered from something into something. To elucidate this point, Aristotle uses the examples of a physical circle and a techneª (as examples of a bodily disposition): ``each thing is said to be complete when it takes on its areªteöfor it is then most in accord with its natureöjust as a circle is perfect when it has most of all become a circle and when it is best) . . . Then just as neither do we call the completion of a house an alteration . . . it is the same with virtues and vices . . . for the one kind are perfections and the other losses, and so are not alterations'' (246 a 10 ¡.)38 Thus, not only bodily dispositions are not subject to alteration, but also (and for the same reasons) dispositions of the soul are not alterations. How this can be brings us to our second observation. Secondly, we are also intrigued by the correlation of the hexeis of bodies and souls because of what remains at stake in claiming that these sorts of beings (hexeis: whether of body or soul) do not admit of alteration. Yet it is clear that for Aristotle all areªte (whether of body or soul) do admit of activity: ``we say that all excellences (areªte) consist in holding certain relations'' (246 b 5). Thus, having a hexis means precisely to be shaped and held in such a way that one displays a certain dependable relation to other beings related to that dispositionöone holds oneself toward the world and in an active, dependable39 comportment toward beings related to that disposition. One displays oneself as actively holding on in relation to other beings ``as'' this or that particular kind of person: that is to say, one actively holds on in relation to sexual activity as a ``temperate'' human; one holds oneself toward fearful situations as a ``brave'' person, and so forth. Thus, hexeis are not alterations and do not belong to the categories of things that admit of rectilinear motion, insofar as we delineated the possible ways this motion can show itself in Chapter Two. However, they are active and engaged in an activity. Aristotle describes this activity almost in direct opposition

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toward rectilinear motion while elucidating the hexeis of the thinking part of the soulöor, rather, what become called the intellectual virtues. But surely neither are the hexeis of the thinking part of the soul alterations, nor is there a coming into being of them. For most of all by far do we say that what has knowledge does so by holding a certain relation . . . And the taking on of knowledge in the ¢rst place is not a coming into being or an alteration; for it is by the coming to rest and standing still of the thinking part that we are said to know and understand . . . and further, just as someone is set free from being drunk or from sleeping or from being sick, into their opposites, we do not say that someone has become knowing again . . . for it is by the soul's calming down out of its native disorder that it becomes something understanding and knowing. (Altered translation, 247 b ¡.)40 Here Aristotle suggests that alterations imply a certain instability of motion that we cannot say characterizes the intellectual virtues (hexeis of the thinking part of the soul). In the case of episteªmeª, Aristotle argues that rather than the perhaps chaotic comportment of not knowing, the soul calms down into an active state, an activity of holding on in relation to the natural being one knows in such a way that one comports oneself toward that being in a dependable, consistent, and knowing way. Once one holds the knowledge (or perhaps ``is held and secured'' by the knowledge), once the knowledge becomes a part of one's physis, one is held toward that beingöthe being is displayed in a consistent and, therefore, comforting and calming way for understanding. So, hexeis (and thus virtues) are activities that dispose us toward the world in such a way that we may hold on to ourselves and maintain our being and our nature in the wake of the pressures and structures of transformation persistently imposing themselves upon us in the surrounding world. Yet if virtue, as we argue, is so central to human nature and its preservation, how do we make sense of Aristotle's placement of hexis among the incidental of the beings that are human beings? I would respond to this problem by suggesting that we must attend carefully to the speech register of Aristotle's treatises. For instance, if I am concerned with describing what shows itself in any given, particular being at any given, particular moment, then my discourse adheres to the demands of the task. In the Categories, Aristotle has precisely this task in mind: of beings possessing thinghood, what shows itself ? He then lists the beings that reveal themselves: we see an independent thing that carries along with it numerous other beings that could not be without the independent thing: qualities, hexeis, etc. However, while this method works quite well for the task at handödescribing any given, particular beingöit is not something that Aristotle maintains throughout the various other investigations. For instance, ``happiness'' and ``the good'' are not things of secondary concern to Aristotle's corpus, yet, under strict adherence to the description of the categories, we would have to say that they are merely incidental to beings. Moreover, one might argue that the Physics as a whole is a collection of discourses about things

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that precisely evade simple categorical description: where do ``motion,'' ``the in¢nite,'' ``void,'' and ``time'' ¢t in the categories? I want to argue the same for hexeis and virtue when I claim that these activitiesöwhich do not admit of rectilinear motionöare central to the securing and preserving of the physis of the human being for Aristotle. Yet if the activity of virtue does not betray a rectilinear motion, what sort of activity is it? As is evident from my introduction to this chapter, I will argue that the motion is circular. Moreover, I will now argue that the preserving and securing circular motion in question, the motion of a hexeis that holds on in relation to other beings, is energeia or being-at-work. The activity is circular and the action displays the holding-oneself in harmonious accord, holding the various parts of the soul and body in what we might call a well-ordered musical scale. The soul and body display themselves in a kind of musical ratio or logos41 of aisthesis, orexis, logos, and nous that, in harmonious relation, can withstand exterior pressure. But, how does the being-at-work of virtue display itself as human circular motion? As we know from Metaphysics theta, Aristotle thinks that energeia takes precedence over dunamis. Among the ways it takes precedence is as a motion, writes Aristotle: energeia takes precedence over ``every source of motion or rest in general'' (1049 b 10). This statement in the midst of his discussion of energeia foreshadows a most important passage later in which Aristotle writes that energeia is not a motion, at least not those energeiai that ``have no other work besides their being-at-work'' (1050 a 33). Further, we can understand how being-atwork can be conceived as, on the one hand, an activity but, on the other hand, not as a motion by attending to an earlier passage in Aristotle's elucidation of energeia. In chapter six of book seven, Aristotle considers the di¡erence between a praxis and a motion. Praxis, if we are speaking in simple terms, is not a motion for Aristotle. One example that Aristotle o¡ers is losing weight, which cannot be conceived as a praxis. Firstly, an ``action'' such as losing weight must come to an end, if the person is to remain alive. Secondly, the end of the activity is itself not present in the activity, but remains something outside of the activity, toward which the activity strives. As such, losing weight is not complete. Thus, ``this [losing weight] is not an action, or at any rate not a complete one; but that in which the end is present (uparche)42 is an action'' (1048 b 22). Thus, human action, an activity subtended by human reason and carried out for the sake of virtue, displays itself for Aristotle as complete in precisely the same way that we described the primary, circular motion of the spheres in Chapter Two. Here, in the Metaphysics, Aristotle further elucidates his claims regarding action by way of examples: For instance, one sees and is at the same time in a state of having seen; understands and is at the same time in a state of having understood, or thinks contemplatively and is at the same time in a state of having thought contemplatively, but one does not learn while one is at the same time in a state of having learned, or get well while in a state of having gotten well. One does

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live well at the same time one is in a state of having lived well, and one is happy at the same time one is in a state of having been happy. If this were not so, the action would come to a stop, just as when one is losing weight, but it does not stop, but one is living and in a state of having lived. And it is appropriate to call the one sort of action motion, and the other being-atwork. (1048 b 23 ¡.) As we showed in Chapter Two from our reading of the Physics and are reminded here in the Metaphysics, rectilinear motion, even though it admits of being by revealing a certain form of continuity, remains incomplete. However, as we also saw in Chapter Two, there remains a motion that secures and maintains the being of the kosmos and, through its very continuous activity, bequeaths to rectilinear motions their form of continuity: this primary motion Aristotle named the circular motion of the kosmos. In the above passage, I want to argue that Aristotle indicates that being-at-work, too, reveals a primary, circular motion, a circular motion that preserves and maintains itself. Moreover, in the activity of virtuous action, we can witness a being-at-work of the human being, through which the person maintains and preserves itself in accordance with nature. Yet the reader might still wonder about the nature of the continuity of human ethics. We can certainly imagine that the human being holds on in its virtuous disposition by maintaining the harmony of its activity and, moreover, this activity is continuous. But, what do we mean by continuous in this instance? I want to argue, as I indicated above, that the continuity that marks the circular motion of the human being is the holding-on to the desiring parts of the soul and the thinking parts of the soul in accordance with physis; which is to say, the soul is disposed and uni¢ed in a harmonious and virtuous relation with each of its parts, and therefore, the world and nature. The principle of the continuity of human nature is holding oneself toward physis (toward oneself, others, and the world) in a virtuous way, an activity that preserves and secures one's harmonious relation to physis. Our elucidation of akrasia above is perhaps enough to ensure us of this claim. After all, there we saw that continence could not be a virtue, for Aristotle, since the soul was not harmoniously organized: continence, we argued, might better be described as a developing virtue; for, in it, desire still wants something that right reason has ruled as ``not good for our happiness.'' Thus, we might argue that continence is incomplete action. But there are other places in the Ethics that also o¡er examples of the continuity of human action. Namely, in the description of human choice. In book six of the Ethics, Aristotle shows, as we have seen from our considerations of other parts of his corpus, that human choiceöan archeª of praxisöis the embodiment of nous, logos, and orexis. Of course, human choice (proairesis) is distinguished from decisions of other animals insofar as logos is involved. Children and animals do not have the capacity for proairesis since they do not have logos. Here, Aristotle displays the continuity of human activity, its circular motion, most clearly by pointing toward the complete harmony of the soul in the

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ruling and decisive act of proairesis: ``Now the archeª [the ruling origin] of praxis is proairesis . . . whereas that of proairesis is orexis and logos for the sake of something; hence proairesis cannot exist without vous and diavoia, nor without habituation . . . Hence proairesis is either a desiring intellect or a thinking desire, and such an archeª is an anthropos.'' Here we see that human choice requires the prouparchousa gnoªsis, insofar as we are required to be born into a situation in which we can acquire logos and the cultural norms associated with it, that is, insofar as we must be habituated into a cultural economy regarding the good. Moreover, true human choice requires the more exquisite logos of human nature to disclose the prouparchousa gnoªsis in the self-re£ective way we discussed above. Moreover, we require nous, so that we may intellectually grasp hold of the situation disclosed to us. But, in addition to these, we require desire; for desire is motivating the entire action, insofar as we move toward that good for the sake of which the action is undertaken. Thus, in a rather circular way, Aristotle concludes that human choice is ``either a desiring intellect or a thinking desire and such an archeª is o anthropos.'' In this way, Aristotle articulates the harmonious unity in a way that displays a continuity of soul and body. Moreover, the activity itself uni¢es the soul in virtue. Here, we see that ethics in Aristotle is not about the logos of the human being enslaving the desires. Quite the contrary, a virtuous comportment displays the human being in harmony with the beings into which she has been placed in relation. That is, she displays herself in harmony with her nature, and disposes herself toward the world happily and virtuously. Rather than reason and desire jockeying for dominance in a sort of Manichean universe, Aristotle's nature is fundamentally perfect. If human nature is in accordance with the archeª of its unique motion, the human being places herself within a relation of eudaimonia toward the world. However, in the comportment of vice, the human falls away from its nature and discloses itself as an enemy of nature. As such, the human undergoes the fate of her actions, insofar as she must live with the consequences of having opposed nature and thus divided herself from her own nature.

Final Remarks on the Virtue of Rational Discovery

What is virtuous action? The question still resonates after more than twenty¢ve hundred years of documented philosophical re£ection. Indeed, if we are to assent to Aristotle's de¢nition of the human being, then, even prior to written and preserved accounts, this question would seem to be the archeological detritus marking the evidence of the presence of human beings in any excavation. Posing this question (as well as chancing an answer) remains the most distinguishing detail of human nature, for Aristotle. We might argue that the comportment that becomes embodied in the question remains even more important than having an answer; for, at least in light of our reading of Aristotle, once a reasonable answer is o¡ered, the comportment of anxious openness becomes exchanged for one of dependable conclusion. While the open comportment suggested in the question might otherwise be directed toward reliable (and thus completed) answers when employed in matters of applied mathematics and other such subjects,1 as the basic comportment subtending human nature, the maintenance of the comportment is ¢rst articulated in this question. In order to understand more clearly the apparent asymptotic nature of the answers that have approached the completion of this question, perhaps we should conclude this manuscript on the nature of logos by re£ecting for a moment upon the question ``what is virtuous action?'' and, moreover, the comportment that the question implies; for I want to argue that, in some capacity, the presence of the question already indicates the activity about which it asks. Within the Aristotelian kosmos, this question already implies a comportment which the questioner embodies, a hexis toward oneself, the world, and others that betrays precisely the circular motion that we described in the last chapter. Allow me to return to certain points we made throughout the work as a whole in order to further secure this concluding claim. In the ¢rst chapter, we addressed the logical problem of whether Aristotle's methodology is one resting on a priori or empirical grounds. There, we saw that in order to make sense of Aristotle's account of discovery, we must forego the oppositional paradigm of these methodologies in favor of one which excludes neither sensuous experience nor a priori openings onto beings of nature. It is precisely the nature of the human being to hold itself in discovery in accordance with both (or perhaps neither, if they are conceived as mutually exclusive). For it belongs to the nature of the human being to see things in accordance with her

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nature (the prouparchousa gnoªsis) as well as to break free and stand outside of this structure in order to catch sight of the considered being by its own nature. Ful¢lling such a capacity requires both the a priori, second-order structure of the prouparchousa gnoªsis and the wakeful, ek-static attunement of an open perception that the prouparchousa gnoªsis, it should not be forgotten, makes possible. However, to argue that how one decides these concerns is of only methodological relevance misses the point entirely. Aristotle's logical considerations are an elaboration of the motion of human nature. As such, they are never the articulation of an alien method to master nature nor is logic something to be considered as distinct from nature and human considerations of nature. What we are calling here logical motions, motions of speech (for example, epagoªgeª), re£ect the same pattern as those of physis. For Aristotle, they are the way that the soul turns: the soul changes (metaboleª ) shape in logical disclosure, such that it may perceive the world in light of its discovery (aletheia) through the cultivation of the virtuesöepisteªmeª, phroneªsis, sophia, etc. Thus, narrowing Aristotle's methodological concerns to ¢t either the category of a priori or empirical fails to grasp the unique dialogical character of Aristotelian rational discovery. We have perhaps the same problem in trying to understand Aristotle's ethics. Current ways of framing ethical discussion ¢nd their sources within the same logical paradigm. Thus, the question ``what is virtuous action?'' would be quite contemporary: should we conclude that ethics and the habits that constitute them are merely relative judgments without any authoritative force? Are ethical commitments grounded upon mere subjective conditions of belief such that there remain no shared rational criteria upon which we can demand that everyone take a position when faced with a certain speci¢c ethical dilemma? Or, on the other side of the issue, are there moral judgments that are universal? That is to say, are there moral judgments on which we can always depend for action (like the Ten Commandments), judgments that are as dependable as the moon circling around the earth, so that, in the face of an ethical dilemma, we must simply measure our potential action against a non-rationally achieved ever-orbiting commandment? In other words, what is the authoritative force of an ethical judgment: is it rational, beyond human reason, or is there no ``objective'' authority for human action (which is to ask, does each person achieve ethical action based upon a relativistic ``personal preference''?)?2 In opposition to these common ways of framing the problem of rational grounds in ethics, I will argue that, for Aristotle's ethics, as with his account of discovery, the answer to the question of objective/subjective grounds must be: neither. It would seem that they are much more complex and resist this oppositional paradigm precisely because his understanding of reason remains so foreign to those subtending these accounts. I have argued that, indeed, ethical decisions are partly grounded upon a universal structure of rationality (every action is a repetition in an unavoidable sense), but the decisions themselves require a wakefulness of thinking things through (dianoia) that is, nevertheless, unquestionably singular and original; that is to say, I think that, for Aristotle, virtuous actions are grounded upon a rationality of original repetitions.

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Allow me to explain brie£y what I mean by a reason that takes the shape of ``original repetition.'' In Chapter Four we noted that, for Aristotle, praxis is a unique activity, distinguished from activities we might otherwise call action. Speci¢cally, we said that praxis must involve logos and that those activities performed by ``children and beasts'' cannot represent actions in the sense of praxis. Moreover, we argued that the archeª of praxis is proaireªsis and that too is unique to human beings insofar as it requires logos. Running, hunting, even communicating (generally), building, eating, among in¢nitely more, are activities that do not necessarily employ logos in the way that is most de¢nitive for human nature; for some children and animals can communicate and build things, although human nature is not the archeª of their motions/activities. What then is praxis, for Aristotle? Action is the wakeful appropriation of the habits occurring in the surrounding world of the prouparchousa gnoªsis. The enacted habits and endoxa in the surrounding world touch us, setting us into repetitive motion. We acquire the habit and the arguments in this way. Once we are habituated we may deem this habit and/or argument question-worthy; through a kind of deliberative hesitation and subsequent gathering of the problem that for Aristotle counts as reason we may suspend the self-evidence of the habit or argument and disclose the prouparchousa gnoªsis subtending it, thereby rationally a¡ecting a wakeful comportment of appropriation, either critical or a¤rming. This is a praxis for Aristotle: original repetitions of reason. Action remains grounded upon rational disclosure but, as we have seen already, this reason is not subjective: it belongs ¢rst and foremost to the surrounding world and my wakeful appropriation of it is an act of dialogical engagement, of logos with logos. As such, action does not betray relativity: it is secured by dependable rational procedures that secure themselves among motions of nature. Moreover, human action must not be described as objective either, there are not moral properties ``out there,'' for Aristotle, separate from the motions of dialogical engagement and communal decision. Rather than rational procedures seeking to uncover objective moral forms, the most distinguishing motion of reasonöthe original repetition that praxis betraysöalready is the form, the preserving and securing energeia of the human being. Thus, we might argue that ``what is virtuous action?'' is a question that has subtended the book all along. Not only has the question guided the trajectory of the work, determining the shape and content of the work, but also the book has embodied the disposition that is implied in the question. If praxis is the deliberate a¡ection of the comportment of a foreigner toward oneself, toward the prouparchousa gnoªsis, in such a way as to disclose something about a being by its nature, then we have performed precisely that activity through philosophically interpreting and disclosing the Aristotelian texts. We have approached the eudoxa of Aristotle in a manner intended to disclose more carefully what we already think about reason and, subsequently, to disclose reason by its nature rather than ours. Indeed, if philosophy is the disposition of a citizen becoming a foreigner to her own city, then perhaps we can say that this work has been an action most of all. And if it is agreed that I have performed this one well, then it will have been a virtuous action.

Endnotes

Introduction: Between Reason and NatureöRereading Aristotelian Rationality 1.

Proclus. Proclus: A Commentary on the First Book of Euclid's Elements (Trans. Morrow; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992). 2. When available, I will use the translations of Joe Sachs as a guide throughout the book. However, on the occasion that I di¡er with his translation, I will alter it, indicating the alteration with a parenthetical notation. For instance, Sachs appears consistent in rendering gnosis, eidenai, and episteme as versions of the English ``to know.'' I will show in Chapter One why I think this is a mistake. 3. Aristotle also criticizes the kind of logic that abstracts from beings like mathematics. As examples, we may point to Sophistical Refutations (Trans. E. S. Forster; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000), 169 b 1, and On Coming-To-Be and Passing-Away (Trans. E. S. Forster, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000), 316 a 12. 4. While this work will not raise any further questions about the mathematical, I want to o¡er a few parenthetical remarks regarding certain di¤culties that the above claim separating mathematics from logic (and indeed separating mathematics from beings of nature) engenders. First, it should be acknowledged that, for Aristotle, the activity and science of mathematics does indeed involve logos. But the logical work that human beings undergo in working out what something is (ti esti) shows itself in its relationship to being very di¡erently. Aristotle acknowledges in the Metaphysics that there may be discourse about and a science of mathematics. But he argues that such discourse is of the order that shows itself in the science of ``health'' or the science of ``the white.'' They remain abstractions from the phenomena out of which they emerge. Like these, the science of mathematics is not disclosing what perceptible bodies are, for Aristotle, and neither is it disclosing something about more primordial, separate bodies, if such bodiesölike the forms of Platoöactually admit of being (1078 a 1^5). Whereas, apparently, logic (in the unique way that Aristotle understands this term) does disclose nature. Despite the arguments of those who want to assert that the mathematical things are prior to perceptible bodies, Aristotle argues that they are derivative (1077 a 20); for ``body is prior to surface and length'' and ``body is more complete and whole'' (Trans. Joe Sachs; Santa Fe: Green Lion Press, 2002), 1077 a 26. Thus, the mathematical things are not ousia more than bodies; they are not prior to perceptible things; and they cannot even be said to be without quali¢cation (haplos) (1077 b 12^18).

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5.

6. 7. 8.

9. 10. 11.

12.

Endnotes Rational exercise remains absolutely essential not only to uncovering what some being is but also to uncovering how one should be disposed toward the uncovered thing for the sake of one's wellbeing. Yet, in Aristotle's view, the kind of rational exercise involved in mathematical science operates by abstraction from life and its principles: it is useful in many applications, but it does not make us aware of the nature of beings, not even our own nature (qua rational beings). It is rather derivative of the more primordial logical encounter with the world. We might even say that, for Aristotle, mathematical science and sciences like it split the physical from the logical in their abstraction. Whereas the more primary logos-activity of human beings must be seen in continuity with nature, as a nature. For instance, at 200 a 20, Aristotle writes of material necessity, suggesting that matter is a necessary cause to achieve the end, but is not itself the end. He writes: ``In things that come to be for the sake of something, if the end is to be or is, then what precedes it will be or is, and if not, just as [in syllogism] the ¢rst principle will not be so when the conclusion is not, so also here [in nature] with the end and the for the sake of which'' (altered translation, Aristotle's Physics [Trans. Joe Sachs; New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2001]). So both nature and syllogism achieve their ends in accordance with an identical causal structure. ibid., 228 a 20. ibid., 227 a 1^227 a 20. We will o¡er an interpretation of this procedure in Chapter Two. For now, let it su¤ce simply to quote Aristotle making the same claim: ``just as in demonstration, ousia is the archeª of everything, for syllogisms come from ti esti [what-something-is], while [among biological forms] generations do'' (Metaphysics 1034 a 35). My emphasis. Terence Irwin, Aristotle's First Principles (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 4. ibid., 5. Aristotle: Categories (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002). Given that I have removed these words from their contextualization, perhaps I should here clarify that when Aristotle writes that something is here ``said of '' something as opposed to ``being in'' something, he does not thereby mean that it is merely in speech (a claim which would contradict my reading of the categories). Rather, what he refers to is the di¡erence that can also been seen between certain qualities and magnitudes, for instance. Something may be large in quantity but ``large'' is not in the thing, it rather displays itself as large. The being itself certainly possesses a magnitude (it is not merely a matter of speech), but the being consists ``of '' (or is ``said of '') twenty inches, twenty inches is not ``in'' the being. However, whiteness is ``in'' a white thing and knowledge is ``in'' a human being, though we would not say that a human being consists ``of '' knowledge. One might contest this assertion by pointing toward re£ective judgment in the Critique of Judgment. There, Kant posits re£ective judgment as precisely the capacity of the human being to encounter logical singularity; for these judgments do not require concepts (Trans. Pluhar; Cambridge: Hackett, 1987), p. 59. Secondly, one can point toward the Amphibolies in the ¢rst Critique, in which Kant criticizes Leibniz's inability to account for the di¡erence between two conceptually identical rain drops. Of course, Kant would never claim that one has access to the thing of nature itself here, but there is an access to a certain kind of logical singularity (Critique of Pure Reason [Trans. Guyer; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998], 373) .

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13. ``anaykaion gar agnooumeneªs auteªs agnoeisthai kai teªn phusin'' (Physics 200 b 15). 14. Aristotle's Physics (Trans. Joe Sachs; New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2001). 15. I will follow Joe Sachs' translations of energeia throughout the book: ``being-atwork,'' ``fully at-work,'' ``fully active.'' 16. As to the ontological status of the categories, it remains unclear to me if beings that always are reveal the kind of uni¢ed multiplicity that shows itself in beings that are in accordance with the categories. Here, Aristotle clearly seems to suggest that they are di¡erent. If the beings referred to as ``always are'' are the outer spheres in circular motion, then there are ways which we can clearly say that they display a ``this'' and a ``place'' among other sumbebekoi, but if he refers to the unmoved mover with this phrase, then the status is more ambiguous, as with everything regarding the unmoved mover; for everything always already desires the unmoved mover, which implies a certain ``this-ness.'' Yet the curious ``this-ness'' of the unmoved mover might be nothing more (or nothing less) than the good itself. If that is the case, then we might say that the kind of motion into which every being is compelled into motion might be the motion which exhibits a ``desire for the good,'' it might be nothing other than the passion/desire we exhibit to achieve our own best nature: what category does that reveal except those already at-work in ourselves? 17. Of course, Aristotle, later in the Physics, will qualify his assertions here by narrowing the number of categories in which motion occurs to quality, quantity, and place. 18. Recalling here the connotation belonging to legein in Greek that is equivalent to the English ``to gather.'' Of course, Heidegger makes much of this archaic meaning of legein in several places. 19. ``The Nature of Reason and the Sublimity of First Philosophy: Toward a Recon¢guration of Aristotelian Interpretation,'' Epocheª 7.2 (2003), 223^49. 20. ``Whether focusing on ¢rst principles or on the ultimate non-objecti¢able object of contemplation, in its intuitive, non-discursive, non-logical (a-logon) trait philosophy is revealed as, ¢rst of all, philosophical conductöethos without the unquali¢ed and absolutely necessitating guidance of reason, without rational (or for that matter, doctrinal) prescriptions'' (ibid., 227). While certainly not logical in the modern sense, in the way I have described so far, structures of logos are involved in placing humans in their dispositions by which they are capable of noetically perceiving ¢rst principles. There is no reason to assume that these structures are not reason or rationality. I would argue that they are a uniquely Aristotelian reason that still needs description and articulation. 21. We will see in Chapter Two, Speaking of Motion, that the natural activity (energeia) that secures and preserves the being of any given being Aristotle calls the being's ``nature.'' The nature of a being will be shown to be that primary activity (energeia) that belongs to any given being. The activity, we will see, ¢nds its ultimate origin in the everlasting circular motion of the outer spheres of the kosmosö the preserving force of the kosmos that lends continuity (sunecheia) to everything that is and can be said to be. As such, the primary motion that governs the blooming of the rose and the coming to be of animals remains inseparably dependent on the everlasting motion of the spheres. Consequently, we will have to consider whether one can speak at all of an absolutely unquali¢ed separation between being and becoming in Aristotle. The domain of nature and natural motion extends all the way to the outer edge of the kosmos.

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Endnotes

22. In Chapter Two I argue that continuity is the condition of possibility for both certainty and the being of any being. 23. Keeping in mind the etymological source of kategorein: to accuse, to charge, to assert. 24. Cf. 190 a 18 in the Physics, for instance, or in the Metaphysics 1069 b 34, a passage where logos cannot be read as ``articulation,'' since Aristotle speaks of logos kai eidos as among three aitia and archai. 25. Aristotle's First Principles, 8 26. ibid., 5. 27. ``Aristotle's De¢nition of Motion and its Ontological Implications,'' Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 13.2 (1990). Here Brague argues that a de¢nition (which is a the articulation of an archeª in speech) is not objective, despite its dependability. Also, Claudia Baracchi suggests as much in her ``The Nature of Reason'' essay quoted above. 28. Aristotle's First Principles, 17. 29. Among other places, Heidegger has made this observation in his lecture course Aristotle's Metaphysics theta 1^3: On the Actuality of Force (Trans. Walter Brogan and Peter Warnek; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 2. 30. Posterior Analytics. My translation. (Loeb Classics; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960), 71 a 1. 31. We will also see in Chapter Four that the prouparchousa gnoªsis will help to unhinge the common oppositional interpretations of ethical and political decisions as resting on either realistic or relativistic grounds. 32. Insofar as nous (intellectual perception or intuition) is crucial for discovering a being by its own nature, my claim here might be read to be in con£ict with those passages in which Aristotle argues that nous is without logos (1043 b 1); nevertheless, I think that my reading during the course of the book will show that there is in fact no con£ict or contradiction. To suggest that, by logos, human beings achieve a comportment in which they are able to grasp the nature of something by its own nature in nous is not to say that nous employs logos in order to perform its activity. Nous does not calculate, nous does not deliberate. Like sensuous perception, nous opens its ``eyes'' and sees. Nous undergoes the being that it su¡ers in noeª sis. As such it is rather a pathos in relation to the being under inquiry and we see this in Aristotle's insistence that the noetic activity of the unmoved mover is thinking thinking itself; for the thing thought is more ``honorable'' than that which undergoes the thinking. That is, in every case, the object of thought compels the thinker into thinking. Yet, the unmoved mover cannot be secondary to the object of thought (either in activity or in importance). Thus, the unmoved mover must be thinking itself (1074 b 30). As such, the unmoved mover becomes an object of thought for itself, compelled into activity by itself. So, nous is the intellectual perception of a being laid out before one as the being that it is, in accordance with its own nature. Yet, as I will show in Chapter One and in part three of Chapter Two, in order for a human being to achieve a comportment in which s/he can become aware of a being not by human nature (the prouparchousa gnoªsis), but by that being's nature (the archeª of form), logos is required; for it is the work of reason to free human beings from the constraints of their nature (by their nature) in order to achieve a vision (intellectual perception) of a being by its own other nature. 33. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Trans. Hippocrates Apostle; Grinnell: The Peripatetic Press, 1984), 1198 a 7.

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34. Physics 200 b 12. 35. With this claim, I wish to extend the suggestion of Terence Irwin in his ``The Metaphysical and Psychological Basis of Aristotle's Ethics,'' in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics (Ed. Rorty; Berkeley: University of California, 1980). In this essay, Irwin argues that we should not read Aristotle's ethics in isolation, but that his metaphysical and psychological works contain a structure that is assumed at work in the ethical works too. I am suggesting here that the assertions of the physical treatises are at work in the ethical as well. Moreover, following a verbal remark by Claudia Baracchi, I extend the meaning of ``physical treatises'' here to include the Metaphysics, insofar as they are both about motion: one might be said to be primarily about rectilinear motion while the other might be said to be about circular motion. 36. I am thinking here of Levinas' description of ``alimentation'' and ``nourishment'' in his Totality and In¢nity (Trans. Lingis; Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969), 110^14. For him, logos/reason, with its drive to make known and to make general, would be that human tendency to cover over the alterity of the other being. To the contrary, I will argue that, ¢rst, reason does not belong to me in isolation (it is public and political, qua the prouparchousa gnoª sis). And, second, that logos already contains the potency for the self-di¡ering motion through which humans can comport themselves toward an other being in its alterity. 37. In particular, see the ¢nal two sections of Chapter Two. 38. In his ``Aristotle on the Role of Intellect in Virtue,'' Sorabji is concerned to show the rational grounds in the decisions that constitute virtue. He criticizes those who have ``assimilated [Aristotle] to Hume and the emotivists'' (Essays on Aristotle's Ethics [Ed. Rorty; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980], 209). However, he does not distinguish well the function of reason (orthos logos) from the function of intellect (nous). In fact, in a way he seems to think of them as the same activity in this essay. 39. For example, Julia Annas, ``Aristotle on Pleasure and Goodness,'' in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics (Ed. Rorty; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980). 40. ibid., 296. 41. ibid., 297. 42. The primary text for this reading is G. E. L. Owen, ``Tithenai ta phainomena,'' in Logic, Science and Dialectic (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986). 43. Bolton's interpretations can be found in ``Aristotle's Method in Natural Science: Physics I,'' in Aristotle's Physics: A Collection of Essays (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), as well as ``De¢nition and Scienti¢c Method in Posterior Analytics and Generation of Animals,'' in Philosophical Issues in Aristotle's Biology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 44. Moreover, at the end of the book we will show that the terms cannot be used to describe Aristotle's ethical method either. 45. I will counter the arguments of both Robert Bolton and Owen, who represent opposite sides of the view of epagoª geª and dialogue: my argument in contrast to theirs will be that Aristotle's method of discovery is neither empirical nor a priori. 46. As mentioned before, Aristotle argues in many places in many texts that there is an awareness of a being by our nature and an awareness of a being by its natureöand these are two di¡erent ways of being aware. Of course, Aristotle privileges the awareness of a being by its own nature over that of ours. As a consequence of the argument surrounding the prouparchousa gnoª sis in Chapter One, it will be my argument in Chapter Two that human nature is to break out of this subtending

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and surrounding structure of logos (the prouparchousa gnoªsis) with logos (rationality) in order to articulate the nature of a being by its nature. 47. My usage of ``universal'' here does not betray a systematic usage of katholou. But, of course, neither does Aristotle's, by whom katholou is used in at least three di¡erent, sometimes contradictory, ways. On the one hand, he employs katholou as an interchangeable term for archeª , in Posterior Analytics, for instance. On the other hand, in Metaphysics zeta, he employs it as what we would call a universal genus, that is, in a way that indicates that it is opposed to archeª. Further, he also employs it to describe the undi¡erentiated conception of something, the vague grasp of what something is (also in Physics alpha: 1). 48. Physics 191 b 30 ¡. 49. Insofar as ``to decide'' etymologically means ``to cut away.''

Chapter One: On Discovering Nature through Epagoªgeª 1. An earlier version of this chapter was previously published under the title ``On the Nature of Epagoge,'' in Epocheª: A Journal for the History of Philosophy, 11.1 (Fall 2006). 2. Plato's Republic (Trans. Alan Bloom; New York: Basic Books, 1968), 547 a. 3. I appropriate Joe Sach's translation of to ti en einai here. See his remarks on the same in the glossary of his translation of the Physics (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2001), 254^55: ``What something keeps on being in order to be at all. The phrase expands ti esti, the generalized answer to the question Socrates asks about anything important: What is it? Aristotle replaces the bare `is' with a progressive form (in the past, but with no temporal sense, since only in the past tense can the progressive aspect be made unambiguous) plus an in¢nitive of purpose. The progressive signi¢es the continuity of being-at-work (energeia), while the in¢nitive signi¢es the being-something or independence that is thereby achieved. The progressive rules out what is transitory in a thing, and therefore not necessary to it; the in¢nitive rules out what is partial or universal in a thing, and therefore not su¤cient to make it be. The learned word `essence' contains nothing of Aristotle's simplicity or power [not to mention nothing of the activity expressed in to ti en einai].'' 4. Also compare Owen's ``Tithenai ta phenomena,'' in which it is claimed that Aristotle's method of natural disclosure is one rooted in conceptual grounds rather than in empirical, sensuous observations. While I myself am not convinced that Owen actually makes this rigorous distinction, it is the common reception of his reading. Such a reading would be derived, I suppose, from his claim that ``the Physics ranks itself not with physics, in our sense of the word, but with philosophy. Its data are for the most part the materials not of natural history but of dialectic, and its problems are accordingly not questions of empirical fact but conceptual puzzles'' (Logic, Science and Dialectic [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986], 242). Firstly, as will become clear during the course of the chapter, I do agree with Owen that Aristotle's physical observations are grounded upon dialogical rather than empirical ``data.'' Yet, I do not agree that they are lacking in sense data, nor do I think they are ``conceptual,'' in any modern way of thinking that term. What is commonly translated as ``preexistent knowledge,'' the prouparchousa gnoª sis, I will argue is not a narrowly construed conceptual structure that makes sensuous experience possible for human beings in Aristotle; rather the prouparchousa gnoª sis is a matter of human nature, and is, consequently, a public and dialogical experience with beings: not

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hypostatized thought-beings, but beings of nature. How this can be will become clearer further on in this chatper. Compare also Martha Nussbaum's thoughts on ``saving Aristotle's appearances'' in her Fragility of Goodness, in which she too reads ``phenomena'' in light of Owen's interpretation ([Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986], 240^63). 5. In recent years there has emerged an empirical reading of Aristotle's physical method in opposition to G. E. L. Owen's a priori reading. I take as an example Robert Bolton's ``Aristotle's Method in Natural Science.'' In this essay, Bolton seeks to argue against the claim that Aristotle's procedure in the Physics is dialectical or grounded upon endoxa, but rather he wants to suggest that the procedure is indeed that found in the Posterior Analytics; which is to say, Bolton claims that it is grounded on empirical observation rather than ``Platonic'' dialectic. As Bolton puts it: ``it is an immediate consequence of [a certain correspondence between Physics I.1. and Posterior Analytics II.19.] that Aristotle's method in natural science is not dialectic . . . Dialectic starts and reasons exclusively from endoxa, that is, from the standing convictions either of everyone, or of most people, or of the wise . . . Scienti¢c inquiry on the other hand starts from experience; and an item of experience as Aristotle describes it in An. Post. II. 19., and elsewhere, need not be an endoxon . . . what is important for scienti¢c starting-points is that they come from proper experience, not who accepts them'' (11^12). While I agree with the last sentence of Bolton's claim against Owen, insofar as I take him to mean that scienti¢c principles must be secured through a wakeful, critical comportment which breaks free of the prouparchousa gnoª sis (awareness of a being by our nature) in order to become aware of a being by its nature, I will show that, for Aristotle, one cannot even have human aisthesis without the universal provided by the prouparchousa gnoª sis. Thus, on my reading, even the method of the Posterior Analytics presumes a super¢cial awareness of a being before it can become a question for scienti¢c inquiry and, thus, must view itself as thoroughly dialogical in advance and precisely not empirical. That is to say, if we mean by ``empirical'' an individual human being's construction of a concept out of purely sensuous experience. In addition, Bolton's reading implies a rigorous distinction in Aristotle's famous and ubiquitous claim concerning knowledge that we are, on the one hand, aware of a thing in accordance with our nature and, on the other hand, aware of a thing in accordance with its nature. He writes as if they are two di¡erent methods: being familiar by our nature he sees as the dialogical method and being familiar by a being's nature is empirical. But there is clearly no ``method'' by which we become aware of something by our natureöthat is an awareness into which we are always already born. Indeed, as we will make clear in discussing the motion of epagoª geª , coming to an awareness of a being in accordance with its nature requires working-through the awareness by our nature. 6. I would argue that Aristotle suggests the same method for the discovery of ``what action a situation demands for the sake of the good'' as he does to disclose ``what something is.'' 7. Cf. Aristotle's Metaphysics book one, in which a similar sentiment is expressed: ``What are most knowable are the ¢rst things and the causes, for through these and from these the other things are known, but these are not known through what comes under them . . . So from all the things that have been said, the name sought falls to the same kind of knowledge, for it must be contemplation of the ¢rst sources (archai) and causes'' (Trans. Joe Sachs; Santa Fe: Green Lion Press, 2002); Aristotle's Metaphysics (Ed. Ross; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1924), 982 b 10.

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8. Aristotle's Physics (Ed. Ross; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). When available, I will rely on Joe Sachs' translation of Aristotle's works as a guide. 9. With this grouping together of episteª meª and eidenai, I merely seek to repeat Aristotle's own words; I do not therewith assert an equation between the two. In fact, there are more ways of disclosure (eidenai), it seems to me, than episteª meª . 10. I employ the language of comportment and ethic here to highlight that knowledge and wisdom in Aristotle's physical/metaphysical treatises are not data about an object that can be stored in mental ¢le cabinets. Rather, these are comportments that humans acquire and a¡ect toward the world. Knowledge is not a what, for Aristotle, but a how of comportment. The inquirer a¡ects the disposition of knowledge toward a being when she acquires the virtue of knowledge. 11. I think it is important to distinguish the translation of gnoª sis from the translation for episteª meª . Aristotle does distinguish between acquaintance with something and knowledge of something. As will become clearer later on in the chapter, familiarity (gnoª sis) with a being seems to me to be a very di¡erent occurrence than episteª meª , and thus, should be rendered into English by re£ecting this di¡erence. 12. It seems to me that there are obvious parallels between these consequences of Aristotle's remarks about the method of natural disclosure here at the beginning of the Physics and Heidegger's contribution to the question of method in Sein und Zeit: the hermeneutical circle. The reader will recall Heidegger's remarks on the necessity of a certain circular approach to the question of being in his introduction, an approach that seems remarkably similar to Aristotle's method of approaching physis: we must begin to disclose the meaning of being from within an already operative horizon of meaning into which we have been thrown and by which we become aware of anything at all, especially something like being: ``This guiding [horizon of the meaning of being] grows out of the average understanding of being in which we are always already involved and which ultimately belongs to the essential constitution of Da-sein itself '' ([Trans. Stambaugh; Albany: SUNY Press, 1996], 8 [Tu«bingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1993]). The critical comportment that we a¡ect toward the average understanding of being that will, for Heidegger, enable us to more carefully and wakefully reformulate the question does not indicate the logical failure of circular reasoning: `` `circular reasoning' does not occur in the question of the meaning of being. Rather, there is a notable `relatedness backward and forward' of what is asked about (being) to asking as a mode of being of a being'' (8). How di¡erent must Aristotle's understanding of nature be from contemporary interpretations if the disclosure of nature and everything that has a nature requires a similar method of inquiry as Heidegger's Sein. 13. Even though the mental action of feigning a hypostatized distance from nature is misleading, it might nevertheless also be part of our nature, qua logos (reason/ speech) having beings. After all, the activities of logos are often deceptive; logos, in its activity of taking things apart and putting them back together, often takes things apart that do not belong apart. One need only point to the example of matter and form in the Physics, in which Aristotle argues that matter and form are nowhere encountered apart in nature but rather these are only taken apart by our nature. That is to say, matter is found separated from form only in logos (193 b 5). 14. Aristotle's ¢rst words of the Metaphysics are ``by nature humans stretch themselves out toward disclosure (eidenai)'' (980 a). 15. ``general view of something'' here translates katholou which must be an idiosyncratic usage; for Aristotle means that, at ¢rst, one has a rather undi¡erentiated view of

Endnotes

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

121

a thing (sugkechumena) rather than a precise view. For instance, when one is approaching a town by car, at ¢rst the city appears a singular mass, but as one gets closer, one is able to di¡erentiate many things that were previously undi¡erentiated. If katholou were not idiosyncratic here then it would directly contradict what my next sentence from the Posterior Analytics says is katholou. While I want to di¡erentiate Aristotle's usage, I do not think, as does Robert Bolton, that we should totally divorce the two. We should assume that, underlying this choice of terminology, there is a reason. Indeed, it is not accidental. We ¢rst encounter the universal in this highly ambivalent state in accordance with our nature; for, as I will later argue, sensation of the universal (in accordance with our nature) is required before we can intuit the universal (qua di¡erentiated form). Compare the end of chapter ¢ve of the Physics where Aristotle writes that ``what is katholou is familiar by logos, but what belongs to each thing is familiar by aisthesis, since logos is of the katholou and aisthesis is of the particular'' (189 a). Compare also Ross' commentary on book one, chapter one in his Aristotle's Physics: ``It is clear that katholou is not used in its usual Aristotelian meaning,'' 457. ``We knew already that every triangle has the sum of its interior angles equal to two right angles; but that this ¢gure inscribed in the semi circle is a triangle we recognize only as we are led to relate the particular to the universal [all of this last bit from ``we are led to'' translates epagomenos egnorisen]'' (my italics, Hugh Tredennick's translation of the Loeb edition; Analytica Priora et Posteriora [Ed. Ross; [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964], 71 a 22). I choose as an example Marjorie Grene's book, A Portrait of Aristotle (London: Faber & Faber, 1963). ``Knowledge proceeds, Aristotle says, from things better known to us to things prior absolutely and back again, that is from perception through induction to ¢rst principles and back to the conclusions'' (90). In addition to the texts of Robert Bolton cited above, one may also ¢nd an empirical reading in Allan Gotthelf 's ``Aristotle's Conception of Final Causality,'' in Philosophical Issues in Aristotle's Biology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 214. ``It is a corollary of this four-part main thesis that Aristotle's teleology . . . is fundamentally empirical in character, and not an a priori doctrine brought to his investigation of nature.'' As made clear in the introduction to this chapter, my argument is that neither ``a priori'' nor ``empirical'' belong to the description of Aristotle's methodological procedure. I employ the language of ``conceptual'' in order to highlight the oppositional structure of the traditional interpretations (empirical nature vs. abstract concept); throughout this manuscript, I counter this language with ``prouparchousa gnoªsis'' and ``hermeneutic horizon.'' I translate the most di¤cult term ``huparchein'' with ``subtending and governing.'' Although admittedly awkward and perhaps inelegant, nevertheless, it retains the meaning in English of upo and archeª, which none of the prevailing translations do, e.g., ``is present,'' or ``belonging,'' and especially ``predicate.'' The debate surrounding the purpose and place of the Posterior Analytics in relation to the Prior Analytics becomes illuminated in W. D. Ross' introduction to the Analytica. I use the phrase ``technical problem of knowledge'' because to argue that the Posterior Analytics turns on the problem of knowledge: ``what it is, how it is acquired, how guaranteed to be true, how expanded and systematized,'' as does Hugh Tredennick in the introduction to his translation, seems to me to suggest that the ontological/ ethical problems associated with episteª meª will be addressed in this treatise and they

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22. 23. 24.

25.

26.

Endnotes certainly are not. Rather, the Analytica seem more concerned with the technical characteristics of syllogism (although perhaps not exclusively); whereas these other questions are raised in the ethical and physical treatises with unique results. Indeed, on my reading, ``what knowledge is'' will appear very di¡erent in these other texts. Indeed, demonstrations are said to su¡er a serious lack without contributions made by sensuous perception (Analytica 81 b). Analytica Priora et Posteriora (W. D. Ross; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964), 67 a 20 ¡. One might otherwise be confused by this assertion (by Aristotle); for, in Posterior Analytics as well as other places, Aristotle is translated to say things like: ``it is from the repetition of particular experiences that we obtain our view of the universal'' (Trans. Hugh Tredennick, 88 a 5). Yet the Greek is: ek gar ton kath' ekasta pleionon to katholou delon or rather ``for it is from the multitude according to particulars that the universal is clear [or revealed].'' The previous translation implies that the universal is acquired by building it up out of many experiences with particular instancesöwhich would precisely contradict Aristotle in the Prior Analytics and also remove his ground for resolving the problem in the Meno. But the Greek simply implies that the plurality according to particulars makes clear (or reveals) the universal that already shapes our relation to the thing. Otherwise, how could the form act upon our sensation, changing the shape of our sense organ, as is stated in De Anima (W. D. Ross; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956), 424 a 20. Found also within the Posterior Analytics (71 a 25 ¡.) and the Metaphysics. In the latter text, the ways in which a being can be (at work and in potency) are brought into the topic of learning; Aristotle writes that ``the one who is learning must also already have something of knowledge. But then it is also clear from the same considerations that being-at-work takes precedence in this way too over potency, in respect to becoming and time'' (Trans. Joe Sachs, 1050 a 1 ¡.). Also, compare Physics 247 b^248 a, in which Aristotle argues that we always already have the hexeis of the thinking parts of the soul (i.e., knowledge). Yet, we become distracted and irritated by various problems that the soul encounters. Learning would, therefore, be the holding ourselvesöor being disposedötoward things in such a way as to have very little distraction: ``whenever a particular thing has happened, the thinking part of the soul knows the universals in a certain way through the particular . . . it is by coming to rest and standing still of the thinking part that we are said to know (episteª meª ) and understand (eidenai) . . . it is by the soul's calming down out of its native disorder that it becomes something knowing and understanding'' (Trans. Joe Sachs). But what, after all, does knowledge look like if it always already exists within us? It seems to me that the only way to think this understanding of knowledge is to think it precisely as a comportment, as an ethos. The di¤cult work of thinking knowledge, qua virtue, lies outside the limits of this chapter. Yet, we can glean from this passage that, for Aristotle, knowledge shows up not as data or as information, but rather as a quiet, thinking comportment in which we remain disposed to the world in such a way that we are able to clearly hear nature in its beingat-work within us. sunecheia is a central term to understanding the presentation of motion in the Physics. In his attempt to demonstrate the dependability of motion, that is to say, the being of motion; in his attempt to show that motion exists and to prove that it exists by the fact that it is dependable and ``always or for the most part,'' Aristotle had to show

Endnotes

27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

123

that motion is not haphazard, that it is regular, that it is not in¢nite, that it has limits that always or for the most part delineate its existence. The limits of motion, the being of motion, the dependability of motion, is assured by its continuity (its sunecheia). Here, we understand that motion is ``held together'' in a kind of regularity, that is to say, it is continuous. Motion does not pop up in one place and then stop and end somewhere else. No, it begins, unfolds within a regular temporality and into and out of a speci¢c place. This is its being, its dependability, its regularityö its continuity. Motion can be said to be, because it always or for the most part is continuous. Moreover, motions receive their continuity from ¢rst motion: the most continuous motionöcircular motion. Circular motion is not some metaphysical motion, but a motion of the kosmos that is available to human aisthesis when we simply walk out of our home at night and look at the stars. ``Exein men ten katholou, apatasthai de ten kata meros'' (Analytica 67 a 30). Physics 193 b 5. Categoriae et Liber de Interpretatione (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1936), 1 a 20. Physics 200 b 25. One might also point toward On the Soul, book three, chapter nine, where Aristotle criticizes accounts of the soul that only distinguish between rational and irrational parts. The perceptive part, he says, ``one could not easily place either as irrational or as having reason'' ([Trans. Joe Sachs; Sante Fe: Green Lion Press, 2001], 432 a 30). Aisthesis is not simply irrational, or alogikos. It depends upon logos in the way we have argued. Yet it is not rational either. With this claim, I di¡er with Richard Sorabji and his assertion in ``Intentiality and Physiological Processes'' (in Essays on Aristotle's De Anima [Ed. Nussbaum and Rorty; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992], 196), that perception is without logos for Aristotle. Compare also On the Soul book three, chapter eight, where Aristotle argues that ``one who perceived nothing would not be able to learn or be acquainted with anything either, and, whenever one were to contemplate, it would be necessary at the same time to behold some image. For the things imagined are just like the things perceived, except without material'' (Trans. Joe Sachs, 432 a 5). Even contemplation requires access to sensuous perception. For, without sensuous perception, there are no ``images'' and without images there is no contemplation. Aristotle appears to make a distinction between the kind of work of aisthesis in human beings and the kind in other beings. That is to say, the work of aisthesis might show itself di¡erently and for di¡erent ends in beings with logos and such a di¡erence will be considered later in this chapter. ``pollon de toiouton gignomenon ehe diafora tis gignetai, oste tois men gignesthai logon ek tes ton toiouton mones, tois de me'' (Analytica 100 a). One is reminded of that passage from On the Soul in which Aristotle argues that sense changes shape in accordance with the form of the thing it is undergoing ``as wax is receptive of the design of a ring without the iron or gold, and takes up the golden or bronze design, but not as gold or bronze; and similarly the sense of each thing is acted upon by the thing that has color or £avor or sound, but not in virtue of that by which each of those things is the kind of thing that it is, but in virtue of that by which it has a certain attribute . . .'' (Trans. Joe Sachs, 424 a 20). My allusion here is meant to suggest that the following description of the relation between aisthesis and the universal in the Posterior Analytics needs to be at least informed by, if not governed by, the description of active states in the Physics. While I quoted the relevant passage earlier, the new context justi¢es a second

124

36.

37.

38. 39.

40.

Endnotes quoting: ``whenever a particular thing has happened, the thinking part of the soul knows the universals in a certain way through the particular . . . it is by coming to rest and standing still of the thinking part that we are said to know (episteª meª ) and understand (eidenai) . . . it is by the soul's calming down out of its native disorder that it becomes something knowing and understanding'' (Trans. Joe Sachs). In the Metaphysics, the reader will recall, Aristotle further re¢nes his conception of form in order to distinguish his approach to de¢nition from that of the Platonists. Yet the speech register of the Posterior Analytics does not yet require such a distinction. Although, to be sure, at no time do we distinguish logoi from either universals or forms, they are rather two di¡erent ways that logos shows itself. The potential confusion presenting itself when we compare Aristotle's words in the Analytica to those in the Metaphysics lies in the notion of form as something we encounter in the speech comportment of a de¢nition. It seems as though there might be a contradiction in our words here (that we cannot encounter a being without a universal form), insofar as, in the Metaphysics books seven and eight, Aristotle is critical of form conceived as a universal. Yet there the problem lies in attempting to think the unity of a de¢nition and how a de¢nition can embrace one ousia only. Universals, it is there argued, cannot embrace one thing only, they are, by their very nature, said of many things. Yet forms bespeak some one being, some one ousia. How then do we think singularity with universals? Aristotle answers by recon¢guring the notion of form to be of ousia most of all, which only subsequently becomes a universal once it enters our nature, or the way we perceive nature: logos. I would resolve the suggested contradiction by arguing that form, qua universal, and qua the prouparchousa gnoª sis, is the apprehension of a being in accordance with our nature, whereas de¢nition is an example of a speech comportment in which humans may apprehend a being in accordance with the nature of that being, rather than in accordance with our own. Rather than a militant or violent connotation, I employ this terminology with Heidegger, again, in mind. I am thinking of Auseinandersetzung, or ``confrontation,'' engaging with an author dialogically in order to make clear to ourselves what we already think about something, a thinking that is not (at least not yet) our own, but is rather political, or public, just as the prouparchousa gnoªsis is always already political. Heidegger's understanding of Auseinandersetzung may be found in his works on Nietzsche: Nietzsche (Trans. Krell; New York: HarperCollins, 1991). ``all thinkerly (dianoeªtikeª ) teaching and learning come to be from an alreadysubtending and -governing (prouparchouses) acquaintance/awareness (gnoª seoª s)'' (Posterior Analytics 71 a). In countering this assertion, I am simultaneously countering the claim in G. E. L. Owen's ``Tithenai ta phenomena,'' that Aristotle's method of natural disclosure is one rooted in conceptual grounds rather than in empirical, sensuous observations. See endnote 4. ``By `prior' and `more familiar' in relation to us, I mean that which is nearer to our sensuous perception. And by `prior' or `more knowable' simply and without quali¢cation (haplos), I mean that which is further from it. The most universal are furthest from our perception, and particulars are nearest to it; and these are opposed to one another'' (Modi¢ed trans. Hugh Tredennick; Cambridge: Harvard, 1989), 72 a 1 ¡. After reading this about universals and particulars in conjunction with the passage quoted from Prior Analytics (67 a 20) above, I take it that, for Aristotle, universals (in their disclosive capacity) are prior to our perception of particulars.

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41. See endnote 5. 42. On the mistaken way in which the tradition has often read Aristotle's epagoª geª as ``a generalization from many examples,'' I side with Joe Sachs: ``A famous simile in the last chapter of the Posterior Analytics is often taken to mean that the universal must be built up out of particulars, just as a new position of a routed army is built up when many men have taken stands, but it means just the opposite: it only takes one man to take a stand, after which every other soldier, down to the original coward, will be identical to him. The rout corresponds to the condition of someone who has not yet experienced some universal in any of its instances . . . Aristotle unmistakably says that one particular is su¤cient to make the universal known. That in turn is because the same form that is at work holding together the perceived thing is also at work on the soul of the perceiver (my italics, Aristotle's Physics, 247. I must qualify my appropriation of Joe Sach's assertion here, however, insofar as there are two di¡erent ways which we can be aware of a being: by our nature and by the being's nature. While there can be no awareness of the being without its form, I would argue, as does Aristotle, that there can be no perception of a being by its nature without the prouparchousa gnoª sis, which is indeed the way that I, qua human, can be aware of a being by our nature. 43. A passage considered earlier in the chapter in my remarks on aisthesis (Analytica 100a^100b). 44. For me, thinking epagoªgeª in Aristotle immediately brings to mind the allegory of the cave in book seven of Plato's Republic. It is only subsequent to becoming fully appropriated by the surrounding logos worldöthe cave's prouparchousa gnoª sis: its shadows-world, the games and competitions surrounding the community participation in that worldöthat one is able to break one's bonds and a¡ect a critical disposition toward that structure of familiarity in order to turn in one's soul and a¡ect a disposition toward natural beings such that one may be aware of them by their own nature. 45. Again, I employ the language of ``conceptual'' in order to highlight the oppositional structure of the traditional interpretations (empirical nature vs. abstract concept); I have earlier described the prouparchousa gnoªsis to which this phrase refers as a hermeneutic horizon of disclosure in order to avoid such opposition. 46. Such a brief interpretation of this all-pervasive term is admittedly inadequate, but will hopefully provide enough of a ground for the present purposes of this chapter. 47. ``Pantes gar upolambanomen, o epistametha, me endexesthai allos exein'' (Ethica Nicomachea [Bywater; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1894], 1139 b 20). 48. For example, Posterior Anayltics, 100 b. 49. ``Ek proginoskomenon de pasa didaskalia . . . eª men gar di epagoª ges, eª de sullogismo. eª men deª epagoª geª archeª s esti kai tou katholou, o de sullogismos ek ton katholou. . . . Otan gar pos pisteueª kai ynoª rimoi auto osin ai archai, epistatai'' (Ethica Nicomachea 1139 b 26 ¡.). 50. Generation of Animals (Trans. A. L. Peck; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000), 731 a 30 ¡. 51. See Chapter Four and also my ``On the Nature of Logos in Aristotle,'' Philosophie Antique 6 (2006), 163^80. 52. Periechon is a term that Aristotle employs in book eight of the Physics, for instance, that becomes translated as ``surrounding world'' or ``environment.'' We will consider it further in Chapter Two. For now, let it su¤ce to consider periechon a further description of the prouparchousa gnoª sis.

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Chapter Two: Speaking of Motion 1. Plato's Timaeus (Trans. Peter Kalkavage; Newburyport: Focus Classical Library, 2001). 2. We make this claim while simultaneously noting that there belongs to the nature of logos a capacity for the unnaturalöthat is to say, logos can deceive. We are reminded of this from the fact that logos (in its attempts to £esh out bodies for knowing) can render the world unnaturally, making manifest things that do not show themselves in nature: for instance, the reader will recall the discussion from the last chapter involving the deceptive propensity of logos to separate matter from form. 3. Aristotle's Physics (Trans. Hippocrates G. Apostle; Grinnell: The Peripatetic Press, 1980). 4. Often, Aristotle employs the terminology of motion in order to describe motion. For example, motion is from something to something. This amounts to saying that motion is the movement from something to something, or rather, motion is motion. 5. For example, he writes that nature is ``the way from something to something, or into something'' (Physics 193 b 3). Then we ¢nd that change (metaboleª ), too, is described as always ``from something into something''(Physics 225 a 1 ¡.). 6. ``anaykaion gar agnooumenhs auths agnoeisthai kai thn phusin'' (Physics 200 b 15). 7. The inspiration for considering the speech mode of de¢nition (and many of the topics of this work) will be principally derived from Remi Brague's remarks on the same in his ``Aristotle's De¢nition of Motion,'' 1^19. It is my intention to further elucidate and expand his consideration to the relationship of de¢nition to sunecheia (continuity)öthe very being of motion, the way that motion can be said to be always or for the most part, and therefore, the way that Aristotle ``proves'' that motion is. 8. ``Epei d' eª physis men estin archeª kinhseoª s kai metaboleª s . . . dei meª lanthanein ti esti kineª sis; anagkaion gar agnooumeneª s auteª s agnoeisthai kai teª n physis.'' 9. Aristotle's de¢nition of motion has been read as impenetrable from the beginning, perhaps the most famous account being that of Descartes in The World: ``They [philosophers] admit themselves that the nature of their motion is very little understood. To render it in some way intelligible they have not yet been able to explain it more clearly than in these terms: Motus est actus entis in potentia, prout in potentia est. For me, these words are so obscure that I am compelled to leave them in Latin because I cannot interpret them'' (The Philosophical Writings of Descartes I [Trans. Cottingham, Stootho¡, and Murdoch; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985], 93^94). 10. Philoctotes Project, ``Parmenides' On Nature.'' (Trans. John Burnett, 1892). 11. Aristotle holds a great deal of respect for the power of Parmenides' critique: cf. Physics I. 12. dameª öalso perhaps ``to overcome,'' ``to prevail,'' so that one may interpret the passage to say, as in Mckirahan, ``for in no way may this prevail, that things that are not, are'' (``On Nature,'' in Philosophy before Socrates [Trans. Mckirahan; Cambridge: Hackett, 1994]). 13. The conspicuous implication here is that there inheres within scienti¢c inquiry and even in logic (notably here in the principle of non-contradiction) an ethical order. This topic will come much later in the book. For now let it su¤ce to observe that the condition for the possibility of logical disclosure requires the well-disposed ethos of orthos logos, something only achieved with virtue.

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14. Given that dunamis is something perceivable only in logos, and not by simple aisthesis, we must say that, if accepted as such, this mistake on the part of Parmenides is an ethical mistake as well as a logical mistake. Chapter Three (On the Natural Possibilities of Reason) will address the relation of potency to logos and, thus, work through this problem. 15. As we pointed out in the introduction, compare Categories 1 a 20 where Aristotle speaks of the proto-categories as ta onta, not as abstract things. Also, above in considering every kind of being, he calls them ``categories of being.'' 16. Compare Remi Brague's ``Aristotle's De¢nition of Motion'': ``what Aristotle claims to have established with his de¢nition at 201 b 6, namely, `hoti estin auteª .' is not `that this is what a motion is' (Apostle 44), but `that motion is (indeed)'; the very particular actuality that he praises himself for having made visible despite the di¤culty of the enterprise, is, at 202 a 2, `endechomeneªn d'einai,' for which Apostle's `it is capable of existing' is too weak; I would rather translate: `it admits of being (indeed)' '' (4). 17. Here, Aristotle allows this kind of change, but later in the Physics he will further qualify his statement as to the motion that belongs to thinghood (ousia). 18. This example and the following are examples of techneª which I employ for purposes of analogy (examples that Aristotle himself employs). The house strictly speaking is not an entelechia for Aristotle. 19. Given the topic of this book, it should not go unremarked that one of the causes aligned with telos and also a cause that is more primordial than material should be described here as ``the gathering in speech of the what-it-is.'' 20. It seems to me that Aristotle is making a phenomenological observation here. Does Aristotle mean that, in a causal relation, the end is primary and determines the action, regardless if the end it is directed toward is the good or that which appears to be good to the agent? This would be the sense rendered by W. D. Ross: ``Other things are causes in the sense of ¢nal cause; this is the good or the apparent good'' (Aristotle's Physics [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998], 352). 21. This particular example is one of fortune (tucheª ) and not of chance (automaton); but the example serves to elucidate the problem, for the two di¡er only insofar as ``chance is more extensive, for everything from fortune is from chance, but not everything from it is from fortune. For fortune and what comes from fortune are present to beings to whom being fortunate, or generally, action might belong. For this reason also, fortune is necessarily concerned with actions'' (197 b). Moreover, fortune is concerned with that which is human: thinking and, as I have quoted, action. 22. Humorously, Aristotle argues that, even though the principle of non-contradiction is not, qua principle, demonstrable, there are ways to demonstrate it ``by means of refutation, if only the one disputing it says something; if he says nothing, it is absurd to seek an argument to meet someone who has no argument, insofar as he has none, for such a person, insofar as he is such, is from that point on like a plant'' (Trans. Joe Sachs, 1006 a 12). 23. ``And form or look is nature more than material is. For each thing is meant when it is fully at work, more than when it is potentially. Moreover, a human being comes about from a human being . . . But the growing thing, insofar as it grows, does proceed from something into something. What then is it that grows? Not the from-which, but the to-which. Therefore, nature is the form'' (193 b 10 ¡.).

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Endnotes

24. While my focus in this chapter concentrates on automaton, natural necessity remains a central issue with which Aristotle grapples in this chapter of the Physics. By leaving out the discussion of necessity, I neglect the curious relation chance and necessity form in the thinkers, for example, Empedocles, that Aristotle considers. Aristotle appears ba¥ed in wondering how earlier thinkers could have thought that beings could come to be by chance, yet also have such consistency in following natural necessity's laws. In a commentary within his translation of the Physics, Joe Sachs writes of this relation thus: ``Aristotle repeatedly remarks on the strangeness of everything said about chance by his predecessors, who either give it the ultimate responsibility for the world or abolish it altogether. This combination is present in much of the thought of our times as well, in which the world itself (compare 196 a 27 with chapter six of Descartes' Le Monde) and all living things (compare 198 a 29, and the other reference to Empedocles at 199 b 9 with Darwin's Origin of Species) are said to come about by chance but then run along in constant ways determined rigidly by necessity'' (70). 25. As will become clear shortly, I use this term ``completeness'' merely as a translation to indicate that motion is an entelechia. However, Aristotle is quite clear that motion is not complete in the ordinary understanding of that term, but rather holds itself and meets its end (qua telos or completeness and purpose) in its incomplete nature. The completeness of motion becomes more complicated with the assertions surrounding circular motion (which is indeed held by Aristotle to be complete), which we will have the opportunity to consider later in this chapter. 26. Compare the discussion here about the being of motion with the elaboration of energeia in the Metaphysics. There Aristotle argues that energeia is a praxis without motion. That is to say, unlike ``learning,'' which is an incomplete motion, praxis is complete. Aristotle argues that this shows itself in the praxis of understanding, in which one ``understands and is at the same time in a state of having understood'' (Metaphysics [Trans. Joe Sachs], 1048b 20). We will have the occasion in the ¢nal chapter of this work to consider these lines in more detail. 27. One may also look toward Metaphysics book six, chapter four in which Aristotle considers the principle of non-contradiction. There, he makes it clear this principle is not simply about making logically sound arguments, as if the principle of noncontradiction allows humans to speak of some chaotic world in ways that make it rational and uni¢ed. No. The principle of non-contradiction is logical because it is a principle of nature. Meaningful beings are uni¢ed and one; they cannot be and not be at the same time and in the same respect. 28. I do not mean to imply that the continuous is a being that rules over beings. Rather, the continuous is the indication that something rules over the being of a being and therefore provides the continuity. As such, motion will be seen to be intimately linked to the being of a being insofar as the motion unique to a being will be the expression of that being's nature. Since nature is a principle of motion, nature itself (qua form) rules over the being of a being and the motion of a being, of beings that are capable of motion, expresses that being's unique continuity. 29. With this observation, one is reminded of that passage from the Timaeus in which ``old age'' is described. The triangles that are responsible for the maintenance of the body are in a constant struggle to hold the body together. ``But whenever the root of the triangle grows slack through their having contended against many for a long time in many contests, they're no longer able to cut up the incoming food-triangles and reduce them to similarity with themselves, but they themselves are easily

Endnotes

30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

36. 37. 38.

39.

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divided by the triangles that invade them from the outside; in fact, every animal that's mastered in this way withers, an a¡ection that goes by the name `old age.' And in the end, when the bonds of triangles ¢tted together in the marrow-area no longer hold out under the stress but come apart, they let slip in turn the bonds of the soul; and thus released in accordance with nature, she £ies out with pleasure . . .'' ([Trans. Peter Kalkavage; Newburyport: Focus Classical Library, 2001], 81 d ¡.). Here, we have the example of the continuous holding beings together and securing their unity at the smallest level. The continuous holds the triangles together and provides the being with identity. While everything is functioning well, the being is held together in such a way that it is able to convert the outside into the inside. The triangles take in the outside and make ``the other'' ``the same'' (to use the terminology but not the sentiment of Levinas). Yet, as the triangles wear down, the other takes over and dissolves the same, the same loses its principle of identity. Moreover, this total loss of self is described as ``pleasurable'' since it is by nature. We will have the opportunity to explicate this ``as-structure of nature'' in Chapter Three. But what do we mean when we say that a being may achieve continuity and, thus, secure its being by ful¢lling its potency insofar as it is capable of being seen as such? Generation of Animals. Physics 253 a 14. Recall the passage in On the Soul in which Aristotle argues that all sensation is a form of touch. ``Now of perception, the kind that ¢rst belongs to them all is touch'' (Trans. Joe Sachs, 413 b2). In book three, chapter nine of On the Soul, Aristotle states that ``it is obvious that these two things cause [self ] motion [among ensouled beings], desire and/or intellect . . . Therefore both of these are such as to cause motion with respect to place, intellect and desire . . . desire and practical thinking, since the thing desired causes motion, and on account of this, thinking causes motion, because it is the desired thing that starts it'' (433 a 10 ¡.). ``For sense perception when directed at its proper objects is always truthful'' (427 b 10). We must employ the term ``a¡ection'' with some quali¢cation. For, in Aristotle, hexeis are active, decisive comportments. I will not recount the path of continuity as it makes its way from circular motion to rectilinear motions here. In On Coming-To-Be and Passing-Away, Aristotle o¡ers an account which speaks of the relation of circular motion to things which come to be and pass away through the medium and double-interactive movement of the sun. ``Since the change caused by motion has been proved to be ever lasting, it necessarily follows, if that is so, that coming to be goes on continuously; for the movement will produce coming to be uninterruptedly by bringing near and withdrawing the `generator' [the sun] . . . It is not the primary motion which is the cause of coming to be and passing away, but the motion along the inclined circle [the annual course of the sun]; for in this there is both continuity and also double movement, for it is essential, if there is always to be continuous coming to be and passing away, that there should be something always moving, in order that this series of changes may not be broken, and double movement, in order that there may not be only one change occurring'' ([Trans. E. S. Forster; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000], 336 a 10). De Caelo (Trans. Guthrie; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000), 285 a 29.

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Endnotes

40. Among the more brilliant confrontations with Aristotle's division between rectilinear motion and circular motion is Galileo's geometrical proof o¡ered in the ``¢rst day'' of his Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences. In this text, Salviati o¡ers a proof in which it is shown that a circle, if one increases the size of it enough, becomes a line. Indeed, one could claim from this proof that a line is an in¢nitely expanded circle ([Trans. Crew and de Salvio; Bu¡alo: Prometheus Books, 1991], 37^39). 41. Motion requires continuity to be said to be. However, there is ``continuity'' in a derivative sense and then there is continuity in a proper sense: sunecheia haplos. 42. Given this argument, one might feel compelled to read those passages of the Metaphysics theta on entelecheia, energeia, and dunamis in light of this understanding of motion. After all, what is a complete activity? An activity which lacks motion. Aristotle argues that circular motion is both motion and at the same time a certain sort of rest (Physics, book seven, chapter nine). He also describes contemplation as an activity without motion, among other things (Metaphysics, book nine, chapters six^eight). 43. Mary Lousie Gill, in her ``Aristotle on Self-Motion'' (in Aristotle's Physics : A Collection of Essays [Oxford: Clarendon, 1991]) attempts to locate in the activities (energeiai) of knowledge and contemplation (among, presumably, the other virtues) a way to think an Aristotelian possibility for a self-motion without quali¢cationö a possibility that Aristotle otherwise denies in book nine of the Physics. She does so by arguing that acts of knowledge and acts of contemplation are motions originating, qua potency as an archeª of change in another or in oneself as other, in the self-mover. Yet, two di¤culties for this reading would be that neither the hexis of knowledge nor the being-at-work of contemplation are motions, for Aristotle. He explicitly denies motion to them in the second half of book nine of the Metaphysics. I will later argue that these energeia are, however, motions in the way that circular motion is a motion. It seems to me that Gill's essay would have been made stronger with a careful reading of energeia and hexis. These are not exactly given to self-motion; for, on the one hand, a hexis is made one's own from energeia to energeia (one repeats an already active energeia that shows itself in one's midstö the repetition might be considered a motion, but if it is merely a repetition, it is not knowledge or contemplation), while a motion is from potency to actuality. Secondly, the problem of these serving for self-motion would also arise through the problem of the ownership of knowledge and contemplation. Are they mine in my actions? There is a way that they are (proper knowledge only happens when it has become my own). But there is a way in which they are not (Aristotle is often speaking of the unity of minds [nous] in contemplation and, further, my comportment of knowing would not be possible had I not repeated the being at work of someone else's knowing). 44. Ethica Nicomachea. 45. Analytica Priora et Posteriora. 46. De Anima, ed. W. D. Ross. Translations guided by Joe Sach's, On the Soul. 47. Of course, one might also attribute the discrepancy to the confused state of the manuscripts that make up de Anima gamma, as has been pointed out by Martha Nussbaum in ``The Text of Aristotle's De Anima,'' in Essays on Aristotle's De Anima (Ed. Nussbaum and Rorty; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 2. Or, one might also simply suggest, as has Heidegger, that nous continues to elude Aristotle insofar as ``it is the phenomenon that causes him the most di¤culty'' (Platon

Endnotes

48.

49. 50. 51. 52.

53. 54.

55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60.

131

Sophistes. GA: 19 [Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1996], 58; Plato's Sophist [Trans. Schuwer; Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992], 41), so that Aristotle o¡ers di¡ering accounts of nous. Either of these options might be compatible with the corpus. However, I want to o¡er a reading of Aristotelian nous which, from a certain perspective, embraces the contradiction in such a way as to remove it. K. V. Wilkes, in his ``Psucheª verses the Mind,'' references the relative youth of concepts like modern ``consciousness.'' He writes: ``The sheer novelty of this should not go unremarked. The verb `being conscious of,' in its present sense, dates in English from around 1620, and the noun `consciousness' does not appear until 1678; `selfconsciousness' does not crop up until 1690. The term existed, of course, before then; but it still retained its etymological meaning of `shared knowledge' (cum ‡ scire). French and German display the same pattern.'' Further, Wilkes suggests that this transformation of the meaning of the noetic psychological phenomenon was due to modern skepticism. ``It took the challenge of skepticism to hoist consciousnessö as we now have itöto the pedestal it still occupies today'' (Essays on Aristotle's De Anima [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992], 115). ``To gar auto noein estin te kai einai'' in Parmenides, Die Fragmente die Vorsokratiker (Ed. Diels and Kranz; Deutschland: Weidmann, 1952). Cf. Claudia Baracchi's The Architecture of the Human (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming, 2007). I speak primarily here of the passage at 1143 b 5 where Aristotle writes that one must have ``aistheª sis of the particulars and this [aistheª sis] is nous'' (Nicomachean Ethics). For examples of the debates surrounding this passage see Richard Sorabji's ``Intentionality and Physiological Processes'' and Cynthia Freeland's ``Aristotle on the Sense of Touch.'' Both are in Essays on Aristotle's De Anima (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). Cf. Metaphysics, book nine, for example. Aristotle takes this observation to be his primary contribution to physics. After all, it is the way that he shows both what motion is and that motion is (cf. book three of Physics). We perhaps remain pre-Socratic, insofar as we still think that only those things which are at-work (energeia) actually are. For us, beings in potency merely promise being, but are not. In his ``Intentionality and Physiological Processes,'' 213, Professor Sorabji also alludes to this example of the Physics in reference to perception. However, he does not employ the language of ``middle-voice.'' Aristotle de¢nes nature with precisely these words in Physics beta and at the beginning of gamma. Given Aristotle's remarks here, it seems to me that a potential fruitful textual comparison would be that of Aristotelian nous with Platonic xoªra. Aristotle describes nous in chapter twelve of book gamma in On the Soul in precisely the language of potency. Compare Physics gamma: ``on the one hand there is something by entelecheia only, on the other hand there is something by dunamis and entelecheia'' (200 b 27). Apostle, in his commentary on this passage, is more concerned with the problem of a nous which thinks always. Nevertheless, his observations contribute to our concern too. See Apostle's commentaries on 159^160 (On the Soul [Trans. Apostle; Grinnell: Peripatetic Press, 1981]).

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61. In Metaphysics zeta, Aristotle makes a distinction between ousia and ousia. I employ Joe Sach's translations of the two di¡erent senses of ousia here: ousia as ``thinghood'' and ousia as an ``independent thing.'' 62. See book eight. 63. With this assertion, I share Charles Kahn's observation (in his ``Aristotle on Thinking,'' in Essays on Aristotle's De Anima (Ed. Nussbaum and Rorty; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992]) that the articulation of the activity of nous in human beings is di¡erent than that of nous in and of itself. However, my reading di¡ers from his insofar as he appears to think that it is nous that makes us human animals, whereas I would argue that it is logos that animates our nature as humans. He writes of two conditions that make us human beings: (1) ``empirical consciousness or sentience'' (aistheª sis) and (2) ``nous or access to the noetic domain'' (362). First, there are times when Aristotle suggests that other animals seem to have nous and, as such, participate in the divine. Second, the neglect of logos in this de¢nition is conspicuous since Aristotle often argues that the characteristic that most uniquely makes us human is logos. My suggestion is rather to read nous as belonging to many animals in a certain respectöincluding the unmoved mover and the human being. However, nous functions di¡erently in human beings precisely because of logosöwhich is to say: even nous appears di¡erently in human beings precisely by its interaction with the principle that animates our nature: logos. Much of the work of this manuscript is of course to articulate this relation. 64. In Chapter One of this manuscript. 65. I will have more to say on this topic in the following section on Aristotelian de¢nition; for de¢nition is precisely an example of this disengagement from the prouparchousa gnoª sis through the critical engagement of the prouparchousa gnoª sis. 66. Compare Metaphysics alpha elatton: ``and it is right to feel gratitude not only to those whose opinions one shares, but even to those whose pronouncements were more super¢cial, for they too contributed something, since before us they exercised an energetic habit of thinking'' (trans. Sachs). 67. See my remarks in Chapter One on aistheª sis and the prouparchousa gnoª sis. 68. I thank Michael Abalovich for providing this description. 69. Claudia Baracchi has argued that we must read this statement in its context of distinguishing between sophia and phroneª sis, and must apply a certain quali¢cation to the statement in this context. She points to the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics, where Aristotle suggests that all the sciences are always already inscribed within ethics and politics. Compare her Architecture of the Human. Further, while I am certainly focusing on sophia here as an example of a certain kind of displacement of my human nature, I do read praxis too as a breaking-free of the prouparchousa gnoª sis, but with di¡erent goals than sophia. In this way, I appropriate Claudia Baracchi's suggestion in her ``The Nature of Reason and the Sublimity of First Philosophy'' that we ``articulate an understanding of phroneªsis and sophia, praxis and theoria, in their belonging together. In so doing [we] strive to overcome the traditional opposition of these terms, an opposition preserved even by those thinkers, such as Gadamer and Arendt, who have emphasized the practical over against the theoretical simply by inverting the order of the hierarchy'' (223^24). 70. Nicomachean Ethics (Trans. Sachs, 1141 a 21). 71. Ibid., 1141 b. 72. Jack Lynch, in his ``Johnson's Encyclopedia'' thinks that this description of de¢nition derives from Porphyry's interpretations of Aristotle's Posterior Analytics in his

Endnotes

73. 74. 75.

76. 77.

78.

79.

80.

81. 82. 83. 84.

133

Isagoge which was subsequently interpreted and further secured by Boethius' Commentary on the same. ``From this Scholastic tradition emerged the `genusdi¡erentiae' mode of de¢nition, summarized as `De¢nitio ¢t per genus proximum et di¡erentiam speci¢cam': a de¢nition identi¢es the kind and o¡ers a means of distinguishing it from other examples of that kind. The genus and a minimally adequate number of di¡erentiae provide a de¢nition. Much lexicographical practice even today employs some version of this genus-di¡erentiae de¢nition'' (Anniversary Essays on Johnson's Dictionary [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005], 131). Analytica Priora et Posteriora (Ed. W. D. Ross). Cf. Hugh Tredennick's translation: Posterior Analytics. While perhaps awkward, I wanted to preserve the sense of archeª in the translation of prouparchousa, such that we are able to see that there is an awareness already at work and governing that subtends our awareness of the world and the things in it before we come to learn of them, an awareness that already shapes our perception. Ethica Nicomachea (Bywater), 1098 a 14. The reader will recall our development of the prouparchousa gnoª sis in Chapter One: On Discovering Nature through Epagoªge¨. There I am concerned mostly with presenting Aristotle's procedure of discovery as one with neither empirical nor conceptual inclinations. Rather, I argue that, while aisthesis is a crucial component to discovery in Aristotle, nevertheless, sensation is governed in human beings by the prouparchousa gnoªsis. The function of endoxa in Aristotle's method of discovery has engendered a great deal of debate between those who, on the one hand, wish to see a conceptual/ a priori methodology at work and those who, on the other, wish to see an empirical method at work. With regard to the Physics, for example, compare G. E. L. Owen's ``Tithenai ta Phainomena'' in his Logic, Science and Dialectic with Robert Bolton's challenge to Owen in ``Aristotle's Method in Natural Science,'' in Aristotle's Physics. I use the term `confrontation' in order to convey critical engagement, but not necessarily total negation. I would argue that Aristotle appropriates as much as he refutes from Parmenides (not the least of which: the principle of non-contradiction would appear to stem directly from Parmenides). The objective, on my view, is not so much the annihilation of the Parmenidian claim, but rather a critical engagement and appropriation. The language of facticity here is an appropriation of the concept in phenomenology. I self-consciously appropriate Heidegger's usage of this term, since its broader scope ¢ts more clearly with that which I am locating in Aristotle. I develop a reading of facticity in Heidegger in my essay ``On the Nature of Ethics in Heidegger,'' in Philosophy Today (Chicago: Depaul University, 2004), 377^84. We will pursue the self-di¡ering power of logos as critique in Chapter Four. Also, see my ``On the Nature of Logos in Aristotle,'' in Philosophie Antique 6 (2006). There I elucidate this character of logos to ``turn against itself,'' as it were. 200 b 12 (Ed. Ross). Nicomachean Ethics 1098 a. One is reminded here of Plato's so-called work on nature, the Timaeus. At the beginning, Socrates wonders which kind of person would be suitable to o¡er an account of Nature which would instill within his city of logos a principle of nature, which is to say, a principle of motion. He avoids the poets, since they are too saturated with self-samenessöthey are too woven into the fabric of their own factical constitution. But he also avoids the sophists, for they are too foreign, too uncommitted to their

134

85. 86.

87.

88.

89. 90.

Endnotes factical constitution. So, there must be a person who is somehow both foreigner and citizen, and that would be the philosopher (19 c ¡.). I am of course referring to the famous and remarkable de¢nition of motion at 201 a 10. In addition to the passages from the Physics already cited, Coming-To-Be and PassingAway (Trans. D. J. Furley; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000) o¡ers another example in book one, chapter two: ``For in the underlying thing (hupokeimenon) there is, on the one hand, something according to logos and, on the other, something according to hule'' (317 a 22). By logos here, Aristotle obviously means the same thing he calls eidos in other places. Joseph Owen too recognizes a certain sameness within a footnote of his The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian ``Metaphysics'' (Toronto: Ponti¢cal Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1951). ``It [logos] is related verbally to `form,' to which logos is often the equivalent in Aristotelian usage'' (351). In his ``De¢nition and Scienti¢c Method in Aristotle's Posterior Analytics and Generation of Animals,'' Robert Bolton o¡ers a reading of these three types of de¢nition as if they represent three consecutive points of achieving a de¢nition. For Bolton, ¢rst we are aware of something in accordance with its general sensuously perceived characteristics (this is conceived as a ¢rst de¢nition), then we are aware of something which exhibits why something has the characteristics in the ¢rst de¢nition (this is second), and then we continue our inquiry to clarify the features most basic to our ¢rst sensuously perceived characteristics (this is the third and most primary ``indemonstrable de¢nition''). I disagree with this reading; for I do not think Aristotle suggests that there are consecutive degrees of de¢nition through which a de¢nition passes. Rather, I think Aristotle is again speaking of two incidental (sumbebeª kos) ways we speak of de¢nition and then also the primary way we speak of de¢nition, the third being the primary sense of de¢nition. Bolton's summary of this process is to be found at 145^46 in Philosophical Issues in Aristotle's Biology. I employ Joe Sachs' translation of this term as well as to ti en einai, which he convincingly explains thus: ``What anything keeps on being, in order to be at all. The phrase expands ti esti, what something is, the generalized answer to the question Socrates asks about anything important: `What is it?' Aristotle replaces the bare `is' with a progressive form (in the past, but with no temporal sense, since only in the past tense can the progressive aspect be made unambiguous) plus an in¢nitive of purpose. The progressive signi¢es the continuity of being-at-work, while the in¢nitive signi¢es the being something or independence that is thereby achieved. The progressive rules out what is transitory in a thing, and therefore not necessary to it; the in¢nitive rules out what is partial or universal in a thing, and therefore not su¤cient to make it be. The learned word `essence' contains nothing of Aristotle's simplicity or power'' (Aristotle's Metaphysics [Trans. Joe Sachs], lix^lx). Analytica Priora et Posteriora (Ed. W. D. Ross). Aristotle con¢rms this assertion in his recapitulation of the three forms of de¢nition at 94 a 12 in which this kind is said to be ``the conclusion of a demonstration of the what-something-is.'' Clearly, Aristotle has already said numerous times that de¢nition is of the what-something-is and not demonstration and, moreover, that de¢nition and the what-something-is cannot be proved. Yet there is a way in which a de¢nition can resemble a demonstration in form, but not in such a way that it proves anything, but rather, in such a way that it makes manifest something about, or something that comes along with, the what-something-is.

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91. ``For it is di¡erent to tell why thunder is and to tell what thunder is. For it will be said: `because ¢re is extinguished in the clouds.' But [the question] `what is ¢re?' [is answered by] noise from extinguishing ¢re in the clouds'' (94 a). Aristotle explains that the former is a continuous demonstration (moving forward in the way that syllogisms do) while the latter is a de¢nition. 92. In Posterior Analytics, Aristotle writes that de¢nition is of the ti esti (90 b 30 and 91 a 1). Yet, in Metaphysics, he writes that de¢nition is of the to ti en einai (Ed. Ross, 1030 a 7). My reading will presume a certain synonymous relation between the two in de¢nitions. 93. At 93 b 21, Aristotle has already stated that ``it is clear that, of the things [that have a cause of continuity other than themselves], their what-something-is will be immediate and source (archai).'' Which is to say that their what-something-is either must be assumed (as in the case of demonstration) or they must be made manifest in some other way. We will presently pursue this ``other way.'' 94. I want to clarify that de¢nition is not something that makes a being known in the ¢nal and most explicit way. For Aristotle, this requires knowledge of the why of something, a comportment achieved through apodeixis. De¢nition, rather, makes manifest what something is in its continuous limits, it makes clear to us what is already atwork itself while leaving open why. 95. On this point, consider the claim in Metaphysics zeta, chapter nine that ``just as in demonstration, ousia is the archeª of everything, for syllogisms come from what-something-is, while [among biological forms] generations do'' (1034 a 35). Thus, the what-something-is rules over, provides continuity and completeness, qua archeª , to both thinking or rational disclosure and the generation of natural beings. The continuity in Aristotle between the motions of generation and of logic (and that the latter depend upon the former) seem to me to urgently require further elucidation in the literature. 96. The employment of ``conviction'' to describe scienti¢c enquiry here should occasion a consideration of how to think the ethical and the scienti¢c together. For faith in the revealed being (the being, we will shortly see, is revealed, not proved), as Aristotle here states, subtends and governs our scienti¢c conclusions in an important way. Perhaps this is one of the reason why akrasia is included among the discussion of the intellectual virtues in the Nicomachean Ethics. Where is the conviction of the student who performs syllogisms correctly without knowing why she is doing it? Moreover, without such conviction, what is the status of her conclusions? 97. For an explanation of this translation of to ti en einai, see endnote 18 (Chapter 2) above. 98. For a contrasting view, compare Robert Bolton's essay ``De¢nition and Scienti¢c Method in Aristotle's Posterior Analytics and Generation of Animals'' (in Philosophical Issues in Aristotle's Biology, 120 ¡.) in which he argues mostly against the view that Aristotle's principal method of discovery is dialectic. He, quoting the Topics (142 a 6^7, 141 b 15^19), sees de¢nition as more intimately connected to apodeixis, arguing that de¢nition from our nature is speci¢cally criticized by Aristotle as being for people that lack the intellectual capacity for syllogism. Yet I would argue that Aristotle means something quite di¡erent by this passage from the Topics. Namely, that there is a way that one can form de¢nitions in accordance with our nature, in accordance with the factical constitution in which we ¢nd ourselves, which does not break out of that factical constitutionöwhich is to say, this sort of de¢nition is formed by those who can not or do not employ rationality wakefully and originally

136

99.

100. 101. 102.

103.

104.

Endnotes ( just like the de¢nitions and games established by those bounded souls in Plato's cave allegory, who hold contests and word-guessing games based upon the ruling cave prouparchousa gnoª sis). In fact, there are ways in which syllogism too does not break out of its factical constitution and a¡ect a comportment of knowing (as we recall from Aristotle's assertion in Nicomachean Ethics that there are instances where drunk people are able to string together scienti¢c demonstrations, but do not know what they are saying (Ethica Nicomachea 1147 a 20)). Of course, as Aristotle says in the Posterior Analytics, what-something-is is revealed by demonstration, but it is not for the sake of this that demonstrations are made. ``To be aware of what-something-is is neither without demonstration (in things which have other causes), nor is demonstration of it'' (93 b 15). But this is not to say that the well out of which an archeª of a demonstration £ows is derived from a source other than ``a less clear'' body of dialectical speech. Rather de¢nition breaks out of the speech in accordance with a power that is given by that speech itself: reason. Cf. On the Soul 412 b, where Aristotle writes that the soul ``is ousia in accordance with the formula (logos) and this is what such and such a body keeps on being in order to be what it is'' (De Anima, Ed. W. D. Ross). Thus, there is a certain correlation between the logos of ousia (a thing's primary de¢nition) and its primary activity (to ti en einai). The relation between nous and aisthesis is not uncomplicated. They are both immediate perceptive capacities that are never wrong. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle actually argues that archai are grasped by ``aisthesis and this is nous'' (1143 b). Altered from Joe Sachs' translation. Cf. Balme's argument in his ``Aristotle's Use of Division and Di¡erentia'' in Philosophical Issues in Aristotle's Biology (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1987). In this essay, Balme pursues the notion of diaireª sis in Aristotle. Rather than a rejection of Platonic division, Balme argues that there has rather been a reform. Plato allows what Aristotle called `genus' to be forms, thus, two-footed, animal, gregarious, hornless, etc., the combination of which is a human in which all humans participate. Balme criticizes attempts people have made to argue that Plato presented this as a form of classi¢cation, but rather argues it is a matter of de¢nition to get to the what-something-is. He thinks Aristotle uses diaireª sis for the same purpose, but only after reforming the Platonic way. I agree with Charlotte Witt insofar as she argues that Aristotle's conception of de¢nition betrays a signi¢cant di¡erence to our own conception of de¢nition. Moreover, I agree that de¢nition ``indicates a non-linguistic item,'' as long as we are not thereby saying that de¢nition indicates a non-logos structure. After all, de¢nition is of the being-at-work of a being, or the most exquisite activity of a being, the activity that most reveals a being for what it is: and this is gatheredtogether (legein) for disclosure as form or formula (logos). Moreover, rather than viewing de¢nition as causal, instead, I think that the form is causal, qua arche¨ , of both the de¢nition, and the shape and work of a being. Substance and Essence in Aristotle (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), 34^37. Cf. Joseph Owen, The Doctrine of Being in Aristotle's Metaphysics, chs. 8^13; Jonathan Lear, Aristotle: The Desire to Understand (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 273^93; A. Code, ``The Aporematic Approach to Primary Being in Metaphysics Z,'' Classical Philosophy 6 (1995).

Endnotes

137

105. There are numerous examples of the concern for a de¢nition's ability to grasp one thing: 1030 b 20, 1033 b 30, 1034 a, 1036 a, 1037 b 15, 1039 b 30, 1040 b, 1041 a 10, 1045 a 15, 1045 a 30. 106. Let's not forget that, for Aristotle, ``meaning'' is by nature, not by convention. Cf. 1006 b ¡. 107. This appears to serve as a strong quali¢cation of that famous claim of Aristotle that nous is aneu logou. ``For,'' Aristotle goes on to say, ``it is not possible to think without thinking one thing [noein me noounta], so if thinking is possible one could set down one name for this thing'' (1006 b 10). Nous may not be a logos, but it does not grasp anything unless it grasps a uni¢ed form and, as such, form is a kind of logos. 108. In light of the foregoing characteristics we highlighted about de¢nition, the common phrase throughout these chapters, ``the logos of the eidos,'' might be translated as ``the gathering together of what shows itself,'' or perhaps ``the gathering into a unity of a what is revealed (delon) as a what-something-is.'' 109. In Metaphysics seven, Aristotle makes a distinction between ousia and ousia. That is, he makes a distinction between what Joe Sachs has translated as thinghood and independent thing. It is important to lay out this distinction now, since it would appear that Aristotle, at least at certain times during book seven, distinguishes ousia into, on the one hand, something that is the formal component in a ``composite'' of form and matter and, on the other hand, as a ``whole'' being that is formed out of thinghood and matter (1037 a 30). The principal di¡erence hereöwhich we will see is also the di¡erence between the Platonist's ``form'' and Aristotle's, as well as the Platonists' ``de¢nition'' and Aristotle'söis that one is a non-continuous (contiguous) logical ``composite'' and the other is a continuous natural ``whole.'' 110. Joe Sachs' translation. 111. I place ``Platonic'' in scare quotes to marginalize Aristotle's interpretation of Plato. It might even be that Aristotle here refers not to Plato, but to Platonists, a signi¢cant di¡erence indeed. 112. Compare especially 1045 a 10 ¡.

Chapter Three: On the Natural Possibilities of Reason 1. Leaves of Grass (New York: Modern Library [1855]), 73. 2. Although with di¡erent purposes, we pointed toward this passage in Physics gamma in both the introduction and in Chapter Two. 3. 191 b 30 ¡. 4. ``Nothing will have perception either, if it is not perceiving and doing so actively. So if what does not have sight, and is of such a nature as to have it, when it is of such a nature and moreover has being, is blind, then the same people will be blind many times during the same day, and deaf '' (1047 a 7). 5. Potency is de¢ned in the Metaphysics as an archeª of change in some other thing or in the same thing as other (1046 a 10). 6. 1019 a 15 ¡. 7. We will see that the many-saidedness of being has much to do with this mode of potency, as well as the natural gathering power of logos.

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Endnotes

8. Consider the arguments at the end of book one and the beginning of book two, where Aristotle considers whether huleª or eidos lays greater claim to ousia. Huleª becomes synonymous with potency and eidos more with energeia. Aristotle argues that eidos ultimately, rather than matter, is what persists and underlies the transformation into form from form, for instance, into man from man. Now, in understanding the de¢nition of potency in the Metaphysics, we observe that the form of a man does in fact persist, but the change is rather: into a man from a boy (a man in potency). 9. As we considered in the last chapter, Aristotle asserts the impossibility of proper self-motion in Physics theta 253 a ¡. 10. This ``insofar as we say it to be such'' is also taken up by Remi Brague in his ``Aristotle's De¢nition of Motion.'' While he points to a speci¢cally human capacity that logos enables with regard to potency, a capacity that we will address in section two of this chapter (namely, logos enables humans to sense the potential), I think that in addition to this human logos, Aristotle must also refer to a much deeper meaning of logos here. Aristotle, though his examples here are techneª , is limiting his observation to technological motions. This is the de¢nition of motion. And, it consequently, cannot be that this legein refers to a sort of ``humans are the measure of all things'' epistemology. Rather I am suggesting that it bespeaks a logos structure at the heart of beings, a structure out of which their potencies are lit up. 11. Aristotle's statements about dunamis in the Metaphysics also seem to exclude the possibility of anything like a pure availability, or pure potency. Potencies are always for the sake of some particular energeia. Thus, I understand the mode of potency and dunamis to be a single articulation or formula (logos) of one being; the periphery of potency belongs as much to that being than any particular disposition at work at any given time in a being. Did Heidegger achieve his conception of Dasein through appropriating this thought of Aristotle's? 12. Here those examples are souls with logos, but, of course, not all beings with souls have logos. 13. Cf. 1139 b 20. 14. With this term latency, I have in mind the description of the motion of comingto-be and passing-away in the text with the same name: ``when something has gone into un-perception and into not-being'' (On Coming-To-Be and Passing-Away 319 a 24). 15. This phrase, uttered in numerous places where a description of potency is at stake, seems highly question-worthy. Does Aristotle refer in these places to a human logos at work in nature? Or some other logos? Something more Heraclitean? I will later adhere to the latter argument. A rock does not heat only insofar as a human says it is a doer. The ``buildable'' does not e¡ect itself into ``building'' only insofar as a human sees it as such. I would rather retain Apostle's occasional translation of logos as ``formula'' in such instances: for instance, ``the being-at-work of the buildable, insofar as it is formulated as such (insofar as it is gathered together as such, insofar as it is ordered and structured as such), is building'' (201 a 16). 16. We will need to recall these descriptions of the most primordial forces of nature when considering what a virtue is. 17. I employ ``articulation'' as a translation of logos with a strong quali¢cation. Of course, there are moments when articulation is appropriate. However, we are not talking here about a strictly human articulation of a being. We witness this confusion often in translations of Aristotle. For instance in Hugh Tredennick's

Endnotes

18. 19.

20.

21. 22. 23. 24.

25.

26. 27. 28.

29.

139

translation of the Metaphysics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), he begins chapter one of book nine by translating logos as ``concept,'' so that what we have achieved up till book nine is a ``concept of ousia.'' It seems to me that Aristotle's usage of logos here is more in line with that of Heraclitus. There is a logos to ousia, a ``structure,'' a certain ``formula,'' perhaps even a ``law'' of ousia. Recall the discussion of the potency of place in Chapter Two, section two. I borrow this terminology from twentieth-century hermeneutics. For instance, ``Selfsameness and Di¡erence are always present in anything which is and is recognized as what it is. Only the interweaving of Selfsameness and Di¡erence makes an assertion (logos) possible. In any assertion something which, in being what it is, is identical to itself, is linked to something di¡erent from itself. But it does not thereby lose its selfsameness'' (H. G. Gadamer, Dialogue and Dialectic [Trans. Smith; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980], 143). Might we even claim Aristotle's argument above to be more radical? Namely, thinking potency enables the display of this self-securing di¡erence within the same being, so long as it is not at the same time and in the same respect. I use the phrase ``appears to be her primary work,'' because, for Aristotle, being a doctor cannot be the primary work of a human beingöbeing a doctor ``comes along with'' (sumbebeª kos) the human. However, being a doctor is something easily usable as an example, and naming the primary work (the nature) of each individual thing remains a di¤cult task, as we saw from our discussion of ``de¢nition.'' We will work through Aristotle's articulation of energeia in the next chapter. ``Array'' is a translation of diakosmesis; I am inclined to consider the logos structure at the heart of beings to be a kind of constellation or kosmos. 1042 a 28, for instance. I use as an example Hugh Treddenick's translation: ``For it is from the concept (logos) of substance that all the other modes of being take their meaning; both quantity and quality and all other such terms; for they will all involve the concept of substance, as we stated it in the beginning of our discussion'' (1045 b 25). Joe Sachs translates this passage with ``articulation,'' which continues to make the mistake of translating this logos of ousia as somehow a humanocentric ``concept.'' Moreover, it seems to me that Joe Sachs misses the potential richness of Apostle's translation of logos as ``formula,'' especially insofar as it is a cognate of ``form.'' To be sure, Apostle's ``formula'' as ``a combination of terms, a de¢nition or description'' (Metaphysics [Grinnell: Peripatetic Press, 1979], 460) does not capture the essential meaning of this logos, which is far more Heraclitean and far less Kantian, but it nevertheless can be employed with this caveat much more e¡ectively than ``articulation,'' which already implies that the ousia grasped in the previous discussion is one of abstracted speech and not one of nature. Interrelatedness is yet another way of thinking this gatheredness, array, and order that becomes named in logos. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Trans. Joe Sachs). From On the Soul book two, chapter six, we learn that aisthesis cannot be wrong. It is only with the introduction of logoi that error and falsity can emerge. ``Each sense distinguishes these (color, taste, etc.) and is not deceived that something is a color or a sound, but only about what or where the colored or sounding thing is'' (my italics, 418 a 15). Ethics is by nature, for Aristotle. This or that particular ethos is not by nature, for him, but human ethics and politics happen to humans, qua human nature. One

140

30. 31.

32.

33.

Endnotes might say that the disposition to acquire ethics is by nature for Aristotle (and this disposition is for the sake of the good of the individual and communityöethics is the way that humans achieve their natural good), but this or that particular ethos is not by nature. We shall see in the following chapter that logos retains the same structure as ethics, and logos certainly is human nature, for Aristotle. The reader will recall from the arguments of the last chapter that there is no such thing for Aristotle as self-motion among beings that are in accordance with potency/ being-at-work. Sir David Ross suggests ``in that respect which we refer to when we call it `the buildable' '' (Aristotle's Physics, 537). This still a¤rms my reading, however, that the rocks and stones that are at work as the beings that they are as ``rocks and stones'' possess a potency to be ``buildable,'' and this potency remains intuitable because of logos, ``insofar as we say it to be such.'' Here, I leave this obviously debatable observation of Aristotle's untouched. One may disagree with Aristotle on whether children and animals possess logos. I might be more inclined to argue that animals and children do possess logos in a certain way, but in the way that participates in logos, as he says in the ¢rst chapter of the Ethics: Children and animals, we might say, are able to listen to logos, like a child listening to a parent, but they do not have the capacity for the ``original repetition'' that is the mark of human nature, qua logos, most of all. On the one hand, a virtuous choice is a repetition of the habits in my surrounding world. Yet, on the other hand, it is fundamentally mine insofar as it can only be properly called ``virtue'' in those decisive moments in which I am wakeful and self-re£ective about what I am choosing: virtue is original despite its repetitive nature. We will have much to say about the ``original repetition'' that is the most exquisitely human employment of reason in Chapter Four. ``Children and other animals share in volition, but not in proairesis for proairesis does not belong to non-rational beings'' (Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics [Trans. Apostle; Grinnell: Peripatetic Press, 1985], 1111 b 7).

Chapter Four: On the Nature of Reason 1. A version of the ¢rst section of this chapter was published under the title: ``On the Nature of Logos in Aristotle,'' in Philosophie Antique 6 (2006), 163^80. 2. The Art and Thought of Heraclitus (Trans. Charles Kahn; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1987), fragment III, 28 (Diels fragment II). 3. The ethical and intellectual virtues in the Nicomachean Ethics, for instance, suggest that ethics must be thought more broadly than we think of them today. As mentioned before, every aspect of Aristotle's philosophical system (if we can even call it such) is already saturated with his ethics, whether we speak of sophia, episteme or phroneª sis. 4. These two translations represent Apostle's and Sachs' translations, respective, of the indicated terms. 5. In seeking what is proper to humans alone, Aristotle asserts that it is ``the life of action of a being who has (echon) reason'' (1098 a). 6. In the Eudemian Ethics, Aristotle does say that logos and epithumia are by nature, which in a strictly modern sense, might seem to contradict my (and the Nicomachean

Endnotes

7.

8.

9.

10.

11. 12.

141

Ethics') claim here that logos is a hexis and not innate. However, perhaps we too quickly assume an understanding of the usage of ``by nature''; for Aristotle claims that logos ``is a natural property, because it will be present in us if our growth is allowed and not stunted, and also desire is natural, because it accompanies and is present in us from birth'' (Eudemian Ethics [Trans. H. Rackham; Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996], 1224 b 10 ¡.). Thus, while epithumia is by nature present in us from birth, logos will by nature take root in us as we mature, provided all the circumstances are favorable. Plants and animals share in living, and animals share in sensation, however, the kind of life ``that puts into action that in us that has reason [logos]'' (modi¢ed translation, 1098 a 4) remains unique to, and the de¢ning characteristic of, the human being, for Aristotle. Moreover, not even children have become humans in this sense; for ``children and animals share in volition, but not in intention . . . for intention does not belong to non-rational beings [alogon]'' (Apostle's translation, 1111b 5¡.). Here, I have in mind the passage in book eight of Aristotle's Physics that we addressed in Chapter Two of this manuscript. There we saw that the source of self-motion is articulated to be not within one, but rather tou periechontos, or from the surrounding world. There, we showed that not only desire is caused by the surrounding world, but even thought (dianoia) receives its compelling urge to move by that which one has around one ( periechon). Indeed, we have just spoken of the transformation of logos into logos. Should we not here consider the generation of form into form as articulated in the Physics and Generation of Animals. That is, should we not wonder about the natural motion of generationöaccording to the Physics, the generation of form is always a motion from something (a form) into something (a form)? Is human reason, qua human nature, generated in a similar fashion? Clearly we can argue that the motions are analogous. Especially in light of our reading of the logos/form equation in natural beings and especially in light of our assertion that human rationality must be somehow derived from this other gathering structure, we will need to consider the motion of the coming to be of rationality in individual human beings in the same way. Yet what is that out of which logos moves? Are the epithumeª tikon and the orektikon the same? One way of thinking them di¡erently, would be the following. Epithumia can perhaps be thought of as that which ``happens upon the thumos,'' so that one is compelled by something outside of one. It might resemble something like Kant's notion of gefallen in his account of the beautiful. The beautiful gefa«lt mir. ``I'' am placed in the dative case and the beautiful happens upon me, something ``strikes me'' as beautiful. Whereas orektikon comes from teinoª : ``stretching oneself out toward.'' One stretches oneself out toward something in desire. As such, it appears more active than epithumia, which seems more passive. Although we must remember that this comes ¢rst in the motion of identity constitution, not second. Indeed, we might even say that it paves the way and opens the soul to the possibility for logos as energeia. With a certain amount of hesitation, I here follow Giorgio Agamben's claim that vegetative life is excluded from politically quali¢ed life, the life of eudaimonia: ``Aristotle de¢ned the end of the perfect community in a passage that was to become canonical for the political tradition of the West, he did so precisely by opposing the simple fact of living to politically quali¢ed life . . . `born with regard to life, but

142

13. 14. 15.

16. 17.

18.

19. 20.

21. 22.

23.

Endnotes existing essentially with regard to the good life' (1252 b 30)'' (Homo Sacer [Trans. Heller-Roazen; Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998, 2). Moreover, I assert that logos is, at least in part, the object of sustenance for the part of the soul whose alimentation leads ultimately toward eudaimonia. Magna Moralia (Trans. G. Cyril Armstrong; Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge: Harvard Univeristy Press, 1990). These are di¤cult to pin-point, since human beings who are born deaf and blind are able to appropriate language and other socially repetitive gestures and comportments, through, apparently, touch. Although we must say that Aristotle would not allow this initial being, yet, to be called a human being in the full sense, but perhaps only a human being in potency. The complete human being requires the further capacity to be-at-work in logos, qua energeia, which we will speak about presently. As we shall see in the next quoted passage, Aristotle puts this transformation in the terminology of physis; that is, he will suggest that this change in virtue and language is a transformation of the very nature of a human being. It is important here to note that, for Aristotle, ``having knowledge'' does not mean possessing data. Rather, it means comporting oneself in such a way that the world is displayed before one in accordance with episteª meª . The episteª meª has become part of one's nature in such a way that one perceives and senses the world in light of one's transformed nature. It seems to me that this is made quite clear by his example. For children performing logical deductions possess data, but the syllogisms have not shaped the soul in such a way as to become part of their nature, disclosing the world in accordance with this nature. ``Many things are called by the same name by virtue of a similarity, the term `continence,' too, is used for the habit of the temperate man by virtue of a similarity, for both a continent man and a temperate man are such that, for the sake of bodily pleasures, they do nothing contrary to reason; yet the continent has, while the temperate does not have, bad desires'' (Apostle's translation, 1151 b 32 ¡.). ``It is evident, then, that incontinence is not a vice, except perhaps in a quali¢ed way, for incontinence is contrary to one's deliberate choice while vice is in accordance with it'' (Apostle's translation, 1151 a 6). ``There is a kind of man who, because of his passion, loses control of himself and acts contrary to his right reason, and it is passion that rules him when he acts not according to his right reason, but passion does not rule him in such a way as to make him convinced that he should be following such pleasures without restraint. This is the incontinent man, being better than the intemperate man, and being bad but in a quali¢ed way; for the best thing in him, which is the principle (archeª ), is preserved'' (Apostle's translation, 1151 a 22 ¡.). The environment of logos, or the prouparchousa gnoª sis. I repeat the words of Joe Sachs on this matter: ``Aristotle replaces the bare `is' with a progressive form . . . plus an in¢nitive of purpose. The progressive signi¢es the continuity of being-at-work, while the in¢nitive signi¢es the being-something or independence that is thereby achieved. The progressive rules out what is transitory in a thing, and therefore not necessary to it; the in¢nitive rules out what is partial or universal in a thing, and therefore not su¤cient to make it be'' (Aristotle's Metaphysics, ix). I would think that the word ``essence'' in current English parlance in no way connotes the activity or work communicated in the grammar. Primary is meant here as both ``¢rst'' and ``most primordial.''

Endnotes

143

24. We should keep in mind that our articulation of this motion in Chapter Two was directed at revealing the ¢rst principles of episteª meª : a de¢nition. So, the ¢rst step toward knowledge shows itself precisely through the motion of epagoª geª öa logos comportment. Moreover, episteª meª is an intellectual virtue. Thus, the motions of human discovery would seem to apply both to scienti¢c and ethical deliberations. Although, to be sure, the ends and expectations for each, qua particular virtues, are quite di¡erent even though their ends in relation to achievement of human nature are uni¢ed. 25. See Chapter One of this manuscript. 26. See Chapter One of this manuscript. 27. See Chapter Two of this manuscript. 28. Compare Posterior Analytics, book one, chapter one with Nicomachean Ethics 1139 a 17. 29. 1147 a 18 ¡. 30. If one agrees with Jonathan Lear's reading of Aristotle's ethicsöthat relatively few members of the species actually achieve this end, and therefore, ``almost no humans live good human lives'' (``Testing the Limits: The Place of Tragedy in Aristotle's Ethics,'' in Aristotle and Moral Realism [Ed. Heinaman; Boulder: Westview Press, 1995], 64^65)öthen it would appear that among biological species, humans rarely ful¢ll their nature and also rarely achieve their circular motion. 31. Here we see that the work of logos, despite being an original and unique stance which distinguishes the actor from the prouparchousa gnoª sis, nevertheless is a stance compelled into being from the prouparchousa gnoªsisöthus, the occurrence of the motion of original logos remains within Aristotle's physical claims about motion: everything except for the unmoved mover is pushed into motion by something else. 32. In light of the claims that we will make later, we can take from this statement that, for a human, choosing to ignore, failing to a¡ect a knowing comportment, is a failure of human nature, and, therefore, the choice to go against human nature and to make an enemy of nature. 33. Consider the impossible situation of animals in the food trade who happen to live on factory farms. Every trace of this problem is covered over in the nationwide grocery store chains. The shopper willfully ignores the terrible hygienic and tortuous conditions of the living animals when they decide to purchase the faceless meat lying in the meat case. As we will see shortly, it would seem that this lack of awareness and lack of rationality in our decision-making is not merely cruel (which it indeed is) but also is against reason and therefore not a result of forward thinking, insofar as it is an action that turns nature into our enemyöhow much salmonella, mad-cow disease, and other unknown diseases have we unleashed upon ourselves as a result of this activity? 34. Indeed, on these matters we witness Aristotle himself, time and again, failing to really actively engage his rational wakefulness in order to critically appropriate the dominant habits and attitudes toward women, for instance, that have so obviously shaped him. 35. The reader may have intuited a certain correlation I am making between the dialogues of Plato and Aristotle's ethics here. In the Timaeus, for instance, Socrates argues that neither the poet nor the sophist can o¡er the best account of the principle of nature; for, while the former is too much at home in the city, being the keeper of the city's myths and norms, the latter is too foreign, having no real regard for the

144

36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41.

42.

Endnotes cultural norms of the many cities in which the sophist ¢nds himself, but rather saying what needs to be said to manipulate and persuade without the good will to ¢nd the truth of the matter. It is the philosopher who will o¡er an appropriate account, who remains both citizen and foreigner at the same time. Moreover, the Republic con¢rms this: the place of philosophy is the Piraeusöit is neither the city proper, nor is it truly outside the city: it is the place where the citizen and the foreigner congenially meet with good will. Heidegger employs this term to discuss the wakefulness of Dasein in the situation, for example, of being-toward-death (Sein und Zeit). Recall Aristotle's equation of thinghood (ousia) and form (eidos) in book two, chapter one of the Physics. There are well-known discontinuities in the manuscripts of book seven. I am using Joe Sachs' translation of the Physics with alterations. By ``dependable,'' I mean a disposition toward a being (either good or bad) that one displays time and again. He goes on to argue that ``children are able neither to learn nor to judge from sense perceptions in the same way as their elders, for their disorder and motion are great'' (248 a 5). With these words, I am recalling certain arguments made in the Republic and Timaeus: in the latter, beings are brought into being by structuring their parts in a certain proportional relation, a proportional relation that, on the one hand, reveals a musical scale holding together the kosmos as well as everything in it and, on the other hand, a musical scale which displays a harmonious relationship to the various beings in the universe (cf. 35a^b, 35b^36b, 36b^d, 36e^37c; Trans. Kalkavage). In the former, music is revealed as crucial to the pedagogical formation of the soul and the virtues. Moreover, in this text logos is included within the teaching of music (cf. 376 c ¡.). In accordance with our translation of prouparchousa gnoª sis, perhaps we could render this term with ``subtending''; that is to say, the action does not have a end already subtending the activity.

Final Remarks on the Virtue of Rational Discovery 1. For instance, as we articulated in the last chapter, those activities which are not proper energeia, activities in which one is ``learning'' and ``losing weight.'' When one engages in these comportments one is in rectilinear motion and expects the motions to come to an end. Yet, I am arguing that the question ``what is a moral action?'' re£ects the most primordial comportment of human nature, the one that ¢rst enables the disclosure of the prouparchousa gnoªsis so that one may engage it critically: the ¢rst circular motion marking the human being. 2. These questions are predicated upon the debates of ``moral realism'' against those of ``emotivism'' and vice versa.

Bibliography

Aristotle's Works Aristotle. Analytica Priora et Posteriora. Ed. W. D. Ross. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964. öö Categories. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002. öö Categoriae et Liber de Interpretatione. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1936. öö Coming-To-Be and Passing-Away. Trans. D. J. Furley. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000. öö De Caelo. Trans. Guthrie. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000. öö Eudemian Ethics. Trans. H. Rackham. Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996. öö Generation of Animals. Trans. A. L. Peck. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000. öö Magna Moralia. Trans. G. Cyril Armstrong. Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990. öö Metaphysics. Ed. Ross. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1924. öö Metaphysics. Trans. Joe Sachs. Santa Fe: Green Lion Press, 2002. öö Metaphysics. Trans. Hugh Treddenick. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989. öö Metaphysics. Trans. Hippocrates Apostle. Grinnell: Peripatetic Press, 1979. öö Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. Hippocrates Apostle. Grinnell: The Peripatetic Press, 1984. öö Ethica Nicomachea. Bywater. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1894. öö Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. Joe Sachs. Newburyport: Focus Publishing, 2002. öö On Coming-To-Be and Passing-Away. Trans. E. S. Forster. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000. öö On the Soul. Trans. Joe Sachs. Sante Fe: Green Lion Press, 2001. öö On the Soul. Trans. Hippocrates Apostle. Grinnell: Peripatetic Press, 1981. öö De Anima. Ed. W. D. Ross. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956. öö Physics. Trans. Joe Sachs. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2001. öö Physics. Trans. Hippocrates G. Apostle. Grinnell: The Peripatetic Press, 1980. öö Physics. Ed. and trans. Ross. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. öö Posterior Analytics. Trans. Hugh Tredennick, Translation. Loeb Classics; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960. öö Sophistical Refutations. Trans. E. S. Forster. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000.

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Index

action see praxis actuality (being-at-work, energeia) 16^17, 45, 51, 55^6, 79^90, 92^9 Annas, J. 11 archeª (principle, source) 2, 7^8, 14^15, 20^1, 37, 45, 82 as structure 44, 81, 84^5 Baracchi, C. 6 Bolton, R. 14 Brague, R. 8 categories of being 3^7, 38^9, 81 Categories 3^7 choice (proairesis) 100^4 continuity 35, 39^52 in contrast to contiguity 2 De Anima 15 demonstration (apodeixis) 64, 67^9 dialectic 8, 11^12 discovery 8, 12, 59^61 and de¢nitions 16, 62^74, 103 in ethics 101^5 of singular beings 52^62 form

7^8, 37, 80^1, 88

Generation of Animals

30, 45^6

Heidegger, M. 8 hexis (active state, disposition)

105^7

induction (epagoª geª ) 19^32 ¢rst principles (archai ) 21^2 incontinence (akrasia) 94^9, 108 intellect (nous) 8, 47^8, 51, 52^62, 109 Irwin, T. 3, 7

Kant, E.

5, 28

logos (reason, rationality) 15^16, 65^7 contributes to aisthesis 6, 22, 25^8, 85^90 as human nature 92^109 and nous 52^62 and the perception of a potency 84^90 relation to nature 1^2, 6^7, 33^5, 37, 48 same as form 8, 37, 80^1, 88 Magna Moralia 96^7 Metaphysics 15, 30, 52^62, 70^4, 79^80, 84, 107^8 motion 10, 33^74 and categories 38^9 circular 48^52, 99^109 and human nature 51, 99^109 self-motion 46^8 nature 13, 16^17, 20, 33^5 logic and 3^7, 10, 20^2 and motion 10, 14^15, 35^52 Nicomachean Ethics 10, 29^30, 87^9, 95^109 non-contradiction, principle of 14 ousia (substance, thinghood) Owen, G. 13, 19^20

20, 22

Parmenides 14^15, 59 perception (aistheª sis) 25^32, 35^52, 54^7, 86^7 of place 43^4 phroneª sis (prudence, practical wisdom) 30^1

150

Index

Physics 5, 7, 13, 19^22, 24, 31^2, 33^52, 80, 82^3, 88, 106 Plato 19, 25, 33 Posterior Analytics 9, 13, 23^4, 28, 30, 62^70 potency (dunamis) 16^17, 37^8, 44^5, 55^6, 79^90 and doing and su¡ering ( poiein and paskein) 81^4 praxis (action) 101^2, 107 pre-existent knowledge see prouparchousa gnoª sis principle see archeª Prior Analytics 25

Proclus 1^3 prouparchousa gnoª sis 8^10, 18, 29^32, 90, 94^5, 97, 102 and de¢nition 34^5, 64^7 and discovery 23, 28, 59^62 and induction 13^14, 19^32 reason see logos Sorabji, R.

11

unity

41^2, 42^4

virtue

17^18, 92^109