1.3 Aristotle´s empiricism

Question 1

Explain what empiricism is.

Answer 1

Empiricists argue that the source of knowledge is not reason but sensory experience. Our senses bring us into immediate contact with the world.

Question 2

Why did Italian poet Dante call Aristotle ´the master of those who know´?

Answer 2

Because he comitted his thoughts on a wide variety of topics to paper. He was an earth-bound empiricist.

Question 3

Explain Aristotle´s longest work ´history of animals´.

Answer 3

It was a compilation of observations on animals. Theories had to be in accordance with ´ta phainomena´ (appearances). The empirical data he collected were also used to correct widely shared prejudices (e.g. where Herodotus says that Ethiopians have black semen, when all of the animals have white semen).

Question 4

Explain why Aristotle´s methaphysics is this-worldy rather than that-worldly.

Answer 4

He dismissed Plato´s view that there are 2 world (world of forms and the natural world). For Aristotle there is only the natural world. All knowledge comes from observing nature.

Question 5

Explain Aristotle´s view of anamnesis.

Answer 5

There can be no such thing as inborn knowledge, all knowledge stems from sense experience. empiricists claim that we are born with no knowledge at all.

Question 6

Name some analogies from empiricists who claim we´re not born with knowledge.

Answer 6

Empiricist John Locke compared a newly born mind with a white sheet of paper with nothing written on it. There is a older version of this analogy; tabula rasa. According to Aristotle, the mind is like tabula rasa (blank slate) before it receives impressions from reality. Those impressions derive from the reception of sensible forms in perception. For Aristotle, perception was ´in-formation´ (the impression of forms by the sensory capacities in the wax tablet of the mind.

Question 7

Give an example of Aristotle´s in-formation.

Answer 7

Perceiving a triangle results in the form of the triangle, but not the chalk entering the mind of the observer. So, the observer is in-formed by the triangle.

Question 8

Explain why Aristotle thinks all knowledge derives from sensory information.

Answer 8

Science consisted for Aristotle in the discovery of the causes of objects : ´We only have knowledge (episteme) when we are able to provide a casual explanation. It has important implications for scientific methodology. His views on the methods of science are set out in detail in his 6 logical treatises (Organon).

Question 9

Explain what Aristotle´s syllogism is.

Answer 9

Furnishing a casual explanation involves reasoning from basic theoretical principles to particular cases. Syllogism is a deductive argument. Example for the question : How can we explain Socrates´ mortality? a. all human beings are mortal. b. Socrates is a human being. C. Hence, Socrates is mortal. Here, a and b are the premises and c the conclusion. In a scientific deduction we move from an unrestrictedly true law (about the mortality of all human beings) to a particular case (mortality of Socrates´). Given the universal validity of the premises in the argument, the conclusion can be drawn with absolute certainty.

Question 10

Explain what happens if the basic premise in the syllogism is not certain.

Answer 10

It still remains possible to construe a syllogism, but it will only produce personal opinion (doxa), not true knowledge (episteme). In that case we are operating outside of science because scientific arguments require the truth and certainty of the first principles.

Question 11

According to Aristotle, what is important for the principles on which scientific knowledge rests? Name 3.

Answer 11

Causative, immediate, true. They cannot themselves be proved by making them the conclusion of another syllogistic argument (they are immediate in the sense of indemostrable).

Question 12

According to Aristotle, how can the truth of the three universal principles be guaranteed?

Answer 12

To establish the basic explanatory principles, we must reverse direction (not moving from the general to the particular but from the particular from the general). Or : induction.

Question 13

Explain induction.

Answer 13

Empirical procedure by which we move from the concrete to the abstract (Aristotle). Induction involves an advance from the observation of particular phenomena to universal laws. Universal principles are obtained from facts derived from sensory observation.

Question 14

Give an example of induction.

Answer 14

An enormous number of people have passed away. These people were all in possession of the property of mortality. Are we now allowed to proceed to the universal law that all human beings are mortal? As Aristotle saw, we are not. ´All the cemeteries in the world cannot make it absolutely certain that there may not be hidden in some unexplored jungle men who do not die´. No matter how large our collection of observations, it will always fall short of guaranteeing the truth and certainty of the first principles.

Question 15

According to Aristotle, what is the only way to guarantee the truth of the three universal principles?

Answer 15

The inductive method of data collection can be understood as a first, important step. The truth of those principles is apprehended by a special and infallible intellectual capacity called ´Nous´.

Question 16

Explain Aristotle´s Nous.

Answer 16

´It must be intuition that apprehends the first principles´. this intuitive induction by the mind (nous) guarantees the truth of the empirically acquired correlations.

Question 17

Give an example of nous.

Answer 17

Although the observations by themselves can only establish that all humans observed who have thus far died are mortal, it is our intellect that produces the insight that humans are necessarily mortal (and not only those who have passed away already, but all generations yet to come).

Question 18

Give 3 reasons why Aristotle is usually portrayed as one of the first empiricists.

Answer 18

Because of his rejection of the world of forms, his merits as an emperical scientist and his defence of the peripatetic axiom and inductive methodology.

Question 19

What is Aristotle´s doctrine of 4 causes?

Answer 19

the formal cause, the material cause, the efficient cause and the final cause. According to Aristotle, to have an explanation of something, hence to have knowledge of something is to have knowledge of these 4 causes.

Question 20

Explain Aristotle´s doctrine of 4 causes.

Answer 20

Can be explained by the making of a marble statue of Apollo. The statue has a certain shape, it is not just a piece of marble. Formal cause : the Apollo-shape. Material cause : The marble. Efficient cause : the primary source of change or its absence (stasis) : the sculptor (in the case of a statue). Final cause : the goal for the sake of which something is done (in this case the end or goal of the statue might be aesthetic or devotional).

Question 21

Give 2 reasons why Aristotle is actually not a radical empiricist.

Answer 21

after the scientific revolution, only his ´efficient cause´ out of the 4 causes was accepted as a real and scientifically interesting cause. Grasping different types of causes cannot be done by using the senses alone, rational activity is also important. As he says himself : ´all scientific knowledge involves reason´. Secondly, his theories are mostly based on very limited and superficial data sets. He seems to have often been led by unquestioned assumptions and prejudices. This is why classifying hum as an empiricist is somewhat controversial.