Aristotle
Through the translations and manuals of Boëthius and others, the
Categories of Aristotle were transmitted to the Latin Churchmen, and
continued to be read even through the darkest ages, when the
Analytica and the Topica were unknown or neglected. The Aristotelian
discrimination between First and Second Substance was thus always
kept in sight, and Boëthius treated it much in the same manner as
Porphyry had done before him.[29] Alcuin, Rhabanus Maurus, and Eric
of Auxerre,[30] in the eighth and ninth centuries, repeated what they
found in Boëthius, and upheld the Aristotelian tradition unimpaired.
But Scotus Erigena (_d._ 880 A.D.) took an entirely opposite view,
and reverted to the Platonic traditions, though with a large
admixture of Aristotelian ideas. He was a Christian Platonist,
blending the transcendentalism of Plato and Plotinus with theological
dogmatic influences (derived from the Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita and
others) and verging somewhat even towards Pantheism. Scotus Erigena
revived the doctrine of Cogitable _Universalia extra rem_ and _ante
rem_. He declared express opposition to the arrangement of the First
Aristotelian Category, whereby the individual was put first, in the
character of subject; the Universal second, in the character only of
predicate; complete reality belonging to the two in conjunction.
Scotus maintained that the Cogitable or Incorporeal Universal was the
first, the true and complete real; from whence the sensible
individuals were secondary, incomplete, multiple, derivatives.[31]
But, though he thus adopts and enforces the Platonic theory of
Universals _ante rem_ and _extra rem_, he does not think himself
obliged to deny that Universals may be _in re_ also.
[Footnote 29: Prantl, Geschichte der Logik, I. xii. p. 685;
Trendelenburg, Kategorienlehre, p. 245.]
[Footnote 30: Ueberweg, Geschichte der Philosophie der scholastischen
Zeit, p. 13.]
[Footnote 31: Prantl, Gesch. der Logik, II. xiii, pp. 29-35.]
The contradiction of the Aristotelian traditions, so far as concerns
the First Category, thus proclaimed by Scotus Erigena, appears to
have provoked considerable opposition among his immediate successors.
Nevertheless he also obtained partizans. Remigius of Auxerre and
others not only defended the Platonic Realism, but carried it as far
as Plato himself had done; affirming that not merely Universal
Substances, but also Universal Accidents, had a real separate
existence, apart from and anterior to individuals.[32] The
controversy for and against the Platonic Realism was thus distinctly
launched in the schools of the Middle Ages. It was upheld both as a
philosophical revival, and as theologically orthodox, entitled to
supersede the traditional counter-theory of Aristotle.
[Footnote 32: Prantl, Gesch. der Logik, II. xiii, pp. 44, 45-47.]
II.
FIRST PRINCIPLES.
A.--_Sir William Hamilton on Aristotle's Doctrine._
In reading attentively Hamilton's "Dissertation on the Philosophy of
Common Sense" (Note A, annexed to ed. of Reid's Works, p. 742, seq.),
I find it difficult to seize accurately what he means by the term. It
seems to me that he unsays in one passage what he says in another;
and that what he tells us (p. 750, b.), viz. that "philosophers have
rarely scrupled, on the one hand, quietly to supersede the data of
consciousness, so often as these did not fall in with their
pre-adopted opinions; and on the other clamorously to appeal to them
as irrecusable truths, so often as they could allege them in
corroboration of their own, or in refutation of a hostile,
doctrine"--is illustrated by his own practice.
On page 752, a., he compares Common Sense to Common Law, and regards
it as consisting in certain elementary feelings and beliefs, which,
though in possession of all, can only be elicited and declared by
philosophers, who declare it very differently. This comparison,
however, sets aside unassisted Common Sense as an available
authority. To make it so we must couple with it the same supplement
that Common Law requires; that is, we must agree on some one
philosopher as authoritative exponent of Common Sense. The Common Law
of one country is different from that of another. Even in the same
country, it is differently construed and set forth by different
witnesses, advocates, and judges. In each country, a supreme tribunal
is appointed to decide between these versions and to declare the law.
The analogy goes farther than Hamilton wishes.
On the same page, he remarks:--"In saying (to use the words of
Aristotle) simply and without qualification, that this or that _is a
known truth_, we do not mean that it is in fact recognized by all,
but only by such as are of a sound understanding; just as, in saying
absolutely that a thing is wholesome, we must be held to mean, to
such as are of a hale constitution." The passage of Aristotle's
Topica here noticed will be found to have a different bearing from
that which Hamilton gives it.
Aristotle is laying down (Topica, VI. iv. p. 141, a. 23-p. 142, a.
16) the various lines of argument which may be followed out, when you
are testing in dialectical debate a definition given or admitted by
the opponent. There cannot be more than one definition of the same
thing: the definition ought to declare the essence of the thing,
which can only be done by means of _priora_ and _notiora_. But
_notiora_ admits of two meanings: (1) _notiora simpliciter_; (2)
_notiora nobis_ or _singulis hominibus_. Under the first head, that
which is _prius_ is absolutely more knowable than that which is
_posterius_; thus, a point more than a line, a line more than a
plane, a plane more than a solid. But under the second head this
order is often reversed: to most men the solid (as falling more under
sense) is more knowable than the plane, the plane than the line, the
line than the point. The first (_notiora simpliciter_) is the truly
scientific order, suited to superior and accurate minds, employed in
teaching, learning, and demonstration (p. 141, a. 29: [Greek:
katha/per e)n tai=s a)podei/xesin, ou(/tô ga\r pa=sa didaskali/a
kai\ ma/thêsis e)/chei],--b. 16: [Greek: e)pistêmonikô/teron ga\r to\
toiou=to/n e)stin]). The second (_notiora nobis_) is adapted to
ordinary minds, who cannot endure regular teaching, nor understand a
definition founded on the first order. But definitions founded on the
second alone (Aristotle says) are not satisfactory, nor do they
reveal the true essence of the thing defined: there can be no
satisfactory definition unless what is _notius simpliciter_ coincides
with what is _notius nobis_ (p. 141, b. 24). He then proceeds to
explain what is meant by _notius simpliciter_; and this is the
passage quoted by Hamilton. After having said that the _notiora
nobis_ are not fixed and uniform, but vary with different
individuals, and even in the same individual at different times, he
goes on: "It is plain therefore that we ought not to define by such
characteristics as these (the _notiora nobis_), but by the _notiora
simpliciter_: for it is only in this way that we can obtain a
definition one and the same at all times. Perhaps, too, the _notius
simpliciter_ is not that which is knowable to all, but that which is
knowable to those who are well trained in their intelligence; just as
the absolutely wholesome is that which is wholesome to those who are
well constituted in their bodies" ([Greek: i)/sôs de\ kai\ to\
a(plô=s gnô/rimon ou) to\ pa=si gnô/rimo/n e)stin, a)lla\ to\ toi=s
eu)= diakeime/nois tê\n dia/noian, katha/per kai\ to\ a(plô=s
u(gieino\n to\ toi=s eu)= e)/chousi to\ sô=ma]--p. 142, a. 9).
Hamilton's translation misses the point of Aristotle, who here
repeats what he frequently also declares in other parts of his
writings (see Analyt. Post. I. i. p. 71, b. 33), namely, the contrast
and antithesis between _notius simpliciter_ (or _naturâ_) and _notius
nobis_. This is a technical distinction of his own, which he had
explained very fully in the page preceding the words translated by
Hamilton; and the words are intended as a supplementary caution, to
guard against a possible misunderstanding of the phrase. Hamilton's
words--"saying simply, and without qualification, that this or that
is a known truth," do not convey Aristotle's meaning at all; again,
the words--"such as are of a sound understanding," fail equally in
rendering what Aristotle means by [Greek: toi=s eu)= diakeime/nois
tê\n dia/noian]. Aristotle tells us distinctly (in the preceding part
of the paragraph) that he intends to contrast the few minds
scientific or prepared for scientific discipline, with the many minds
unscientific or unprepared for such discipline: he does not intend to
contrast "men of sound understanding" with men "not of sound
understanding."
It appears to me that Hamilton has here taken a passage away from its
genuine sense in the Aristotelian context, and has pressed it into
his service to illustrate a view of his own, foreign to that of
Aristotle. He has done the like with some other passages, to which I
will now advert.
What he says, pp. 764-766, about Aristotle's use of the term [Greek:
a)xi/ôma] is quite opposed to the words of Aristotle himself, who
plainly certifies it as being already in his time a technical term
with mathematicians (Met. [Greek: G]. p. 1005, a. 20). On p. 766, a.,
Hamilton says that the word [Greek: a)xi/ôma] is not used in any work
extant prior to Aristotle in a logical sense. This is true as to any
_work_ remaining to us, but Aristotle himself talks of previous
philosophers or reasoners who had so used it; thus he speaks of
[Greek: kata\ to\ Zê/nônos a)xi/ôma] (Metaph. B. p. 1001, b.
7)--"according to the assumption laid down by Zeno as authoritative."
Of this passage Hamilton takes no notice: he only refers to the Topica,
intimating a doubt (in my judgment groundless and certainly professed
by few modern critics, if any) whether the Topica is a genuine work
of Aristotle. In the time of Aristotle, various mathematical teachers
laid down Axioms, such as, If equals be taken from equals, the
remainders will be equal; In all propositions, either the affirmative
or the negative must be true, &c. But the case of Zeno shows us that
other philosophers also laid down Axioms of their own, which were not
universally accepted by others. What Hamilton here says, about
Axioms, has little pertinence as a contribution to the Philosophy of
Common Sense.
Again, Hamilton says, p. 770, a.: "The native contributions by the
mind itself to our concrete cognitions have, prior to their
elicitation into consciousness through experience, only a
_potential_, and in actual experience only an _applied_, _engaged_,
or _implicate_, existence."
These words narrow the line of distinction between the two opposite
schools so much, that I cannot see where it is drawn. Every germ has
in it the _potentialities_ of that which it will afterwards become.
No one disputes that a baby just born has mental _potentialities_ not
possessed by a puppy, a calf, or an acorn. What is the difference
between cognitions _elicited through experience_, and cognitions
_derived from experience_? To those who hold the doctrine of
Relativity, both our impressions of sense and our mental activities
(such as memory, discrimination, comparison, abstraction, &c.) are
alike indispensable to experience. The difference, so far as I can
see, between Hamilton and the Inductive School, is not so much about
the process whereby cognitions are acquired, as about the mode of
testing and measuring the authority of those cognitions when
acquired. Hamilton will not deny that many of the cognitions which he
describes as elicited by experience are untrue or exaggerated. How
are we to discriminate these from the true? The Inductive School