Test 2

Question 1

• What two things must we know about something in order to have scientific knowledge of it?

Answer 1

o Knowing its cause

o Knowing that It cannot be other than it is

Question 2

• What 5 characteristics must the premises of a demonstration have?

Answer 2

o	True
o	Primary and immediate
o	Better known than conclusion
o	Prior to conclusion
o	Cause of conclusion

Question 3

• What exactly does it mean for a premise to be immediate?

Answer 3

o Immediate means not proven through another syllogism i.e. it is known immediately

Question 4

• How convinced must we be of the premises of a demonstration in comparison to the conclusion?

Answer 4

o We must be more convinced of the premise

Question 5

• According to Aristotle, what was the argument used by some ancient skeptics to show that we can’t know anything? (Be complete – give BOTH parts of their argument.)

Answer 5

o The only way we know the last conclusion is proving back but since we have to prove everything it goes back forever
o Since we never finish proving anything then we can’t know anything

Question 6

• What exactly does their argument assume?

Answer 6

o That we get all our knowledge by demonstration through premises

Question 7

• What is Aristotle’s solution to their argument?

Answer 7

o That we know primary premises in another way besides demonstration, the first premise would be known without having to demonstrate it

Question 8

• What is the most basic primary premise of all? (State the version in Metaphysics IV.3 and be complete – don’t leave any part of it out.)

Answer 8

o The same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject and in the same respect

Question 9

• Why exactly can’t there be any proof of it?

Answer 9

o It would have to be proven from a more certain principle but there is no principle that is more certain

Question 10

• If someone denies it, why wouldn’t they be able to say anything intelligible?

Answer 10

o They would be saying the same thing both is and is not

Question 11

• If someone denies it and says it’s false, what would they also be saying?

Answer 11

o That someone who says man would be no more right than someone who this is ‘not a man’
o And if we can’t affirm anything truly then the very claim that “there is no true affirmation would itself be false”

Question 12

• What is Sextus Empiricus’ argument from the sense organs of different animals?

Answer 12

o That they probably have different sense impressions due to those structural differences

Question 13

• What is his argument from people who hear voices?

Answer 13

o They hear them due to a bodily condition

Question 14

• How does he respond to the objection that such people are unhealthy?

Answer 14

o It is unhealthy to us but not to them

Question 15

• What is his argument from people who are asleep?

Answer 15

o That we have different impressions when sleeping and awake and the existence of what we see is not absolute but relative to whether we’re sleeping or awake

Question 16

• What is his argument from gay sex and marrying siblings?

Answer 16

o That it is illegal to the Romans but not to other cultures

Question 17

• What is the same about all of Sextus Empiricus’ arguments on how we dress, incest, gay sex, human sacrifice…?

Answer 17

o That is is strange to the Romans but not to the culture that they are from

Question 18

• In other words, what is his argument for all of these – not his conclusion, but his argument?

Answer 18

o That we shall not be able to state what character belongs to the object in respect of its real essence, but only what belongs to it in respect of this particular rule of conduct, or law, or habit

Question 19

• Then, what exactly does he conclude from all those arguments?

Answer 19

o With so many divergent perceptions and opinions, we can’t know what’s really true or false

Question 20

• What exactly is the argument that Socrates gives against Protagoras’ position that everyone’s opinion is true?

Answer 20

o That no one would ever think anyone else was mistaken

Question 21

• According to Socrates, what would Protagoras himself have to say?

Answer 21

o That he must admit that the people who think he is wrong are right, and he would have to admit that his own opinion is wrong

Question 22

• What exactly does Protagoras’ position that “man is the measure of all things” mean?

Answer 22

o You are the standard of what is true and real, truth and reality are relative to your perception

Question 23

• What is the argument that Socrates gives against that position? Give two of Socrates’ examples from his argument.

Answer 23

o That one man must be wiser than another, and that the wiser is a measure
 Who is better at determining whether a wine will be sweet or dry?
• Vine grower or the harp player
o The Vine grower is
 Whether music will be harmonious?
• Training master of the musician
o The musician is

Question 24

• What is Aristotle’s response to the argument that things appear differently to those who are sleeping?

Answer 24

o That someone who dreams they are in another city doesn’t act like they are there when they wake up

Question 25

• What is Aristotle response to the argument that the same thing can appear different to the same person through different senses?

Answer 25

o That one sense will be more authoritative

Question 26

• What is Aristotle’s final response to those who ask who is to judge who is the healthy observer and who is the defective one? (NOT simply that a doctor is the expert)

Answer 26

o That its impossible to know which is health and not healthy because not everything can be demonstrated

Question 27

• According to Aristotle, why did Protagoras’ hold that man is the measure of all things?

Answer 27

o Because people have different perceptions of the same thing

Question 28

• What is Aristotle’s solution to Protagoras’ argument? Give an example of Aristotle’s solution in the following 3 areas: the senses, the good and bad, the beautiful and ugly. Be specific – give a specific cause that would make one person the measure and another person (with a contrary opinion) not the measure.

Answer 28

In sense:
 Nothing ever looks to one person and the opposite way to another unless one of them is injured or defective and the non-injured party should be the judge
• I.E. If someone is blind and the other is not, the blind person would not be the measure
o In the good and bad
 If something seems good to one person and bad to another, one of them is injured or perverted in some way
• I.E. Hannibal lector should not be used as a measure for good
o The beautiful and ugly
 If something is beautiful to one person and ugly to another the opposite opinions are caused by some defect on one side
• I.E. Beer goggles

Question 29

• List the 4 steps in how we learn primary premises. Why is it impossible to demonstrate the last step? (What you have to do to demonstrate it?)

Answer 29

o All animals can sense
o Animals that can retain their sense impressions have memory
o Repeated memories lead to experience
o And from experience we can generalize universal truths behind art and science

Question 30

• What does Aristotle say that science should start with?

Answer 30

o Requires first knowing the primary or first principles in a science
o We should go from what is more obvious to us to what is clear by nature

Question 31

• Does that contradict his statement in Posterior Analytics II.19 that we should proceed from particulars towards universals? Exactly why or why not?

Answer 31

o No because in posterior analytics II.19 he was talking about primary premises, not scientific knowledge

Question 32

• In Aristotle’s specific example of a man becoming musical, what remains the same through that change?

Answer 32

o Man remains the same

Question 33

• What part of a changing thing is its form?

Answer 33

o The quality that comes to be e.g. the shape of the statue

Question 34

• Which part is the subject?

Answer 34

o The part that stays the same and underlies the change e.g. the bronze in the statue

Question 35

• Which part is the privation? Be prepared to identify the subject, form, and privation in any examples of physical change that I may give.

Answer 35

o	The privation is the previous lack of quality that is gained e.g. lack of the statue shape it will get
o	Identify the subject, form, and privations in examples
	Man becomes tan
•	Subject-Man
•	Form- tan
•	Privations- Not tan or pale
	Clay becomes shaped
•	Subject- clay
•	Form- shaped
•	Privation-unshaped

Question 36

• According to Aristotle, what was the argument used by philosophers who held that nothing can ever come to be? (Be complete – give both parts of their argument.)

Answer 36

o Some thinkers denied that anything can ever come to be in any way because it would have to come to be either from what exists, or from what doesn’t exist before. They concluded that since nothing can ever gain new qualities, everything already has every quality from the start

Question 37

• How does Aristotle use the 3 parts of a changing thing (from Physics I.7) to argue how something can and can’t come to be from what is, and how something can and can’t come to be from what is not? Be prepared to identify how something can and can’t come to be from what it was before. (E.g. If a doctor becomes gray haired, in virtue of what did he become gray haired?)

Answer 37

o Things can come to be from what exists and from what doesn’t exist, but in different senses
o The doctor builds the house qua a housebuilder not qua a doctor
o If a doctor turns gray, this didn’t happen because he’s a doctor, but because he was previously dark-haired, i.e. a doctor turns gray qua dark haired, not qua doctor
o But if a doctor heals or fails to heal, they do this specifically as a doctor i.e. they heal due to the fact that they are doctors qua doctor
o Similarly, something can come to be from nothing, but only in a qualified sense
o Similarly, something can come to be from what already is, but only in a qualified way
o Something comes from “what is not” as a lack or privation in a thing, not from nothing simply

Question 38

• What difference does Aristotle identify between natural and artificial things?

Answer 38

o The things that exist by nature have in themselves a principle of motion and of rest, products of art have no innate impulse to change

Question 39

• What is the difference between natural things and those artificial things that seem to have their principle of motion inside them too (e.g. cars and rockets)?

Answer 39

o The artificial things move due to natural elements inside them

Question 40

• What is Aristotle’s definition of nature? (Be complete – give both parts.)

Answer 40

o Nature is a source of motion or rest within a thing, in virtue of itself and not a concomitant attribute

Question 41

• What is Antiphon’s argument that a thing’s nature is the matter it’s made of?

Answer 41

o That if you plant a bed, what sprouts from it is wood, not another bed

Question 42

• What is Aristotle’s argument that a thing’s nature is its form rather than its matter? (Not his answer to Antiphon)

Answer 42

o We don’t call something a bed whiles its only potentially a bed, but only after it is formed into a bed

Question 43

• How does Aristotle use Antiphon’s own argument to show that nature is form rather than matter?

Answer 43

o That people give birth to people, not a blob of elements

Question 44

• Be able to name the four causes and to give Aristotle’s definition of each (not your own).

Answer 44

o	Material Cause
	That out of which a thing comes to be and persists
o	Formal cause
	The form or pattern
o	Moving cause
	The primary source of change or rest
o	End Cause
	The end, or that for the same of which something is done

Question 45

• Be able to identify the four causes for specific examples that I give (e.g. Which of the causes is the silver of a bowl? What are the four causes of a dining room table?)

Answer 45

o	Dining room table
	Material Cause
•	What its made of 
o	Wood
	Formal cause
•	Its shape or form
o	What defines it as a table instead of a chair
	Moving or efficient cause
•	Who made it
o	Carpenter moved the matter into a certain form
	End Cause
•	What is it for
o	This is why the carpenter made the table in the first place