Wednesday, March 26, 2014
So Aristotle presents this impasse at the beginning of chapter 5: "if one denies that a statement that adds things together is a definition, will there be a definition of anything that is not simple but consists of things linked together?" I still don't understand why this is an impasse at all, or rather why this should be an issue. Why would anyone deny that a statement that adds things together is a definition? It seems like such a person would say that composite things are undefinable, yet such things are those which are most worth defining. What is the advantage of saying that there can be no definition of things that are not simple but things linked together?
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Ugh! This passage is baffling and I feel like understanding it is intuitive but just out reach when you actually try to put words to it.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I think most of the time, if not all, Aristotle addresses impasses to anticipate what his critics will say and thus to refute them ahead of time. So I trust that this impasse does, indeed, have significance, even if I can’t communicate it effectively.
Second of all, this reminds me of 3 things:
1. Words that exist only in our minds and not in (physical) reality. For instance, pegassus is defined as a “winged horse,” which combines two things: wings and horses. Round square defines itself through addition as well: roundness, and squareness. I am not well versed enough about what Aristotle's critics would have thought at the time he was writing this, but I do know that there are some contemporary philosophers that take issue with this kind of composite definitions, including Russell and Quine.
2. Confusing incidental qualities with the definition, which is supposed to get at the core of what-it-is-to-be that thing. Once again, I think of contemporary cases, including the famous analysis of the proposition, “The present king of France is bald.”
3. Aristotle’s snub example reminds me of trying to define curly. In order to define a curl, you include what it means to be curly and what it means to be hair.
The intuitive part of this impasse is that we are studying metaphysics and thus first philosophy, so it seems natural that Aristotle would not want people to get confused about what truly is a first thing.
I’m still confused, so if this doesn’t help, I’ll try to clarify!
-Mackenzie
My first thoughts on the idea of defining anything is wrapped up in your first point: any definition is ultimately just a bunch of words squished together. But your third point reconciles this, I think. Something is obviously "behind" the words. We don't MEAN (italics) the sound that comes out of our mouth when we say something. Rather, we mean something that the sound is supposed to represent.
DeleteIt seems that the "round square" example demonstrates the reason for the impasse. If all we need to do to define something is squish some other things together, we will never get at what the thing really is. In the "round square" example, we have a definition in a way, but no actual thing behind it. Perhaps, then, snubness (1030b20) is not completely explained by "squashed-in nose." It is something on its own that we get closer to by way of the other words. But I could be way off.
Also it seems like if the position Aristotle is ultimately arguing against were true, we'd have something like an infinite regress back to the "real" definition, which might lead people to believe that we just can't define thinghood. But we know that is not what Aristotle things. We cannot define material, but we can define thinghood.
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