Metaphysics midterm

[CORE] [Metaphysics I 1 and 2] What does Aristotle mean by the natural desire to know?

Human beings seek understanding by nature, even when knowing brings no immediate practical benefit. Our enjoyment of sensation, especially sight, is evidence of this desire.

[CORE] [Metaphysics I 1 and 2] What is the ascent from sensation to wisdom?

Sensation gives particular perceptions; memory retains them; repeated memories form experience; art and science grasp universal accounts and causes; wisdom seeks first causes and principles.

[CORE] [Metaphysics I 1 and 2] How does art differ from experience?

Experience knows particular cases and that something works. Art grasps a universal account applying to a class and knows why it works.

[CORE] [Metaphysics I 1 and 2] What is wisdom in I 2?

Knowledge of the first causes and principles, especially the most universal and authoritative explanations of things.

[CORE] [Metaphysics I 1 and 2] What begins philosophy according to I 2?

Wonder: people recognize puzzling things and their own ignorance, then seek explanation. The search advances from familiar puzzles to larger questions about the whole.

[CORE] [Metaphysics I 1 and 2] In what two senses is wisdom divine?

It concerns divine first principles and causes, and it is the knowledge God would possess most fully. These are the two senses emphasized in your handwritten notes.

[CORE] [Metaphysics I 1 and 2] What are the four causes?

Material: what something is made from. Formal: its essence or determining organization. Efficient: the source of change. Final: the end or good for the sake of which it is.

[CORE] [Republic Book I] What is the central inquiry of Republic I?

What is justice, and is the just life better than the unjust life? The dialogue concerns how a human being should live.

[CORE] [Republic Book I] What definition is associated with Cephalus?

Justice is telling the truth and returning what one owes. Socrates formulates and tests this outlook rather than treating every repayment as automatically just.

[CORE] [Republic Book I] How does Socrates challenge Cephalus's definition?

Returning weapons to a friend who has become mentally disturbed could enable harm. Literal repayment and unrestricted truth telling are therefore not sufficient definitions of justice.

[CORE] [Republic Book I] What is Polemarchus's initial account of justice?

Giving what is owed, interpreted as benefiting friends and harming enemies.

[CORE] [Republic Book I] How do mistaken judgments about friends undermine Polemarchus?

We can think bad people are friends and good people enemies. Benefiting apparent friends and harming apparent enemies could reward vice and injure virtue.

[CORE] [Republic Book I] Why does Socrates reject harming enemies as the work of justice?

Harm makes a creature worse in its characteristic excellence. Harming a human damages human virtue, including justice; justice as a virtue cannot make people more unjust.

[CORE] [Republic Book I] What does Thrasymachus mean by justice as the advantage of the stronger?

Rulers establish laws serving their interests and declare obedience just. Justice benefits those with political power rather than the obedient person.

[CORE] [Republic Book I] What is Socrates's first objection to the stronger argument?

Rulers can mistakenly make laws contrary to their own advantage. If obedience is still just, justice sometimes disadvantages the stronger.

[CORE] [Republic Book I] Why must even a band of robbers have some internal justice?

Complete injustice creates distrust, faction, and conflict, preventing coordinated action. Cooperation requires some fair dealing among members.

[CORE] [Republic Book I] What is the soul function argument in Book I?

A thing performs its characteristic work well through its virtue. The soul lives, deliberates, and governs; Socrates identifies justice as its virtue and concludes that a just soul lives well and is happy.

[CORE] [Republic Book II] What are the three classes of goods?

Goods loved for themselves; goods loved for themselves and their consequences; and burdensome goods pursued only for their consequences.

[CORE] [Republic Book II] Where does Socrates place justice among goods?

In the second and highest class: desirable both for itself and for its consequences to someone who would be happy.

[CORE] [Republic Book II] What three claims does Glaucon develop for the opposing case?

Justice originates in a compromise; people practice it unwillingly because they cannot safely be unjust; and successful injustice produces a better life than justice if the conventional argument is correct.

[CORE] [Republic Book II] What is the contractual account of justice?

People regard doing injustice without penalty as best and suffering it without defense as worst. Unable to secure the first and avoid the second, they agree not to wrong each other and call the agreement just.

[CORE] [Republic Book II] What does the ring of Gyges make possible?

Invisibility, giving its possessor apparent freedom to act without detection and ordinary punishment.

[CORE] [Republic Book II] What philosophical question does the ring test?

Would a person still choose justice if no one could detect or punish injustice? It separates intrinsic commitment from fear of consequences.

[CORE] [Republic Book II] Why reverse the just and unjust persons' reputations?

To isolate what justice itself contributes. Give the unjust person a reputation for justice and the just person a reputation for injustice, then compare their lives without rewarding mere appearance.

[CORE] [Republic Book II] What is the larger letters analogy?

When small letters are hard to read, first read the same letters written larger. Justice may be clearer in a city than in an individual.

[CORE] [Republic Book II] Where do they look for justice by 369a?

In a city constructed in speech, beginning with its origins; then they will compare justice there with justice in the individual.

[CORE] [Republic Book II] Why does a city arise at 369b?

No individual is self-sufficient. People have many needs and gather to help one another meet them.

[CORE] [Categories 1 and lecture background] What are equivocal or homonymous terms?

Things share a name but have different accounts of what the name means. Your lecture example is bat as flying animal and bat as sports equipment.

[CORE] [Categories 1 and lecture background] What are univocal or synonymous terms?

Things share both a name and the same relevant account. Animal said of a horse and a dog signifies the same animal nature.

[CORE] [Categories 1 and lecture background] What are the ten categories used in the lectures?

Substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, having or state, action, and being acted on or affection. The names vary slightly by translation.

[CORE] [Metaphysics IV 1 to 4] What is being as being?

Whatever exists considered precisely insofar as it exists, with the principles and attributes belonging to it on that account. It is not an inventory of every fact about everything.

[CORE] [Metaphysics IV 1 to 4] How do special sciences differ from metaphysics?

A special science isolates a domain or aspect, such as health, motion, or quantity. Metaphysics asks about being universally rather than restricting itself to one such aspect.

[CORE] [Metaphysics IV 1 to 4] What is the focal source of the senses of being?

Substance. Qualities, quantities, changes, privations, and other senses are intelligible through their relation to substance.

[CORE] [Metaphysics IV 1 to 4] Why does studying substance let metaphysics study other beings?

Dependent beings and processes refer to substance, just as causes and signs of health refer to health. Their relationships make one connected inquiry possible.

[CORE] [Metaphysics IV 1 to 4] What is the principle of non-contradiction?

The same attribute cannot both belong and not belong to the same subject at the same time and in the same respect. Keep every qualification.

[CORE] [Metaphysics IV 1 to 4] Why do same time and same respect matter?

They allow genuine change and different aspects. A person can sit now and stand later, or have warm hands and cold feet, without contradiction.

[CORE] [Metaphysics IV 1 to 4] Why does the metaphysician examine non-contradiction?

It concerns every being as being, so it belongs to the universal science rather than exclusively to physics or mathematics.

[CORE] [Metaphysics IV 1 to 4] How does IV 4 defend non-contradiction?

By refutation. Ask the opponent to say something with a definite meaning. This commits the opponent to distinctions that the universal denial would erase.

[CORE] [Metaphysics VI 1 to 4] What are the three theoretical sciences in VI 1?

Physics, mathematics, and first philosophy or theology, distinguished by their relation to motion, matter, and separability.

[CORE] [Metaphysics VI 1 to 4] Why compare snubness with concavity?

Snubness means concavity in a nose, so its definition includes a material subject. Concavity can be considered without specifying that sensible matter, illustrating abstraction.

[CORE] [Metaphysics VI 1 to 4] What four broad senses of being are named in VI 2?

Accidental being; being as true and non-being as false; being according to the categories; and potential and actual being.

[CORE] [Metaphysics VI 1 to 4] What is accidental being in VI?

A coincidental conjunction not following necessarily or for the most part from the nature under inquiry, such as the builder's also being musical.

[CORE] [Metaphysics VI 1 to 4] What is being as true?

Being in the sense that an affirmation or denial correctly represents how things are. Truth and falsehood concern the mind's combining and separating in judgment.

[CORE] [Metaphysics VI 1 to 4] Which sense becomes the immediate focus after VI?

Categorical being, especially substance, because the other categories depend on it. VII then asks what substance is.

[CORE] [Metaphysics VI 1 to 4] Does Aristotle reject act and potency after VI?

No. IX examines them explicitly, and XII uses them to explain the unmoved mover.

[CORE] [Metaphysics VII 1 to 6] Why is substance the primary sense of being in VII 1?

Qualities, quantities, and activities are the qualities, quantities, and activities of some definite subject. They depend on substance rather than existing as independent things in the same manner.

[CORE] [Metaphysics VII 1 to 6] What four principal candidates for substance appear in VII 3?

Essence, universal, genus, and substratum.

[CORE] [Metaphysics VII 1 to 6] What is essence?

What it is to be a thing by its own nature, rather than an accidental characteristic

[CORE] [Metaphysics VII 1 to 6] What is substratum?

What underlies predicates or changes: that of which other things are said, while it is not itself predicated of a further subject in the same way.

[CORE] [Metaphysics VII 1 to 6] What three senses of substratum does Aristotle consider?

Matter, form, and the composite of both. In a bronze statue, these are bronze, the determining form, and the concrete bronze statue.

[CORE] [Metaphysics VII 1 to 6] Why cannot matter be substance in the fullest sense?

It is formless and unqualified. The form makes the material an actual, definite kind of thing.

[CORE] [Metaphysics VII 1 to 6] Why does form have explanatory priority over matter?

Form accounts for what the matter actually is as this thing. Matter describes what can receive determination but does not by itself explain the thing's nature.

[CORE] [Metaphysics VII 1 to 6] What does VII 6 argue about a primary thing and its essence?

They are one rather than separate independently existing realities. If a thing were detached from what it is, explaining its being and knowing it would become problematic.

[CORE] [Metaphysics VII 1 to 6] What is the best short answer to the substance question for this class?

Name essence, universal, genus, substratum; divide substratum into matter, form, composite; explain why bare matter lacks definite actuality; prioritize form or essence while acknowledging the concrete composite.

[CORE] [Metaphysics VIII 1 to 5] How are matter form and composite distinguished in VIII 1?

Matter is potentially a definite thing; form is its determining actuality or account; the composite is the concrete material thing that is generated and destroyed.

[CORE] [Metaphysics VIII 1 to 5] Why is a substance not merely a heap of its material components?

A pile of bricks is not automatically a house, nor loose letters a syllable. The unity and organization require an explanatory principle beyond listing components.

[CORE] [Metaphysics VIII 1 to 5] How does matter relate to contrary states in VIII 5?

The underlying subject can receive contrary determinations. Its positive organized state and the privation or corruption of that state must be distinguished.

[CORE] [Metaphysics IX 1 to 8] What is potency in its primary change-related sense?

A principle or capacity for change in another thing, or in the same thing considered in another respect. It includes related active and passive capacities.

[CORE] [Metaphysics IX 1 to 8] How do rational and nonrational powers differ?

A rational power involving an account can produce contrary results, as medicine can heal or harm. A nonrational power as such has one corresponding effect, as heat heats suitable material.

[CORE] [Metaphysics IX 1 to 8] Why is the Megarian claim mistaken?

Acquired expertise is not lost whenever someone stops using it. Otherwise resting builders would lose their craft and people with closed eyes would repeatedly become blind.

[CORE] [Metaphysics IX 1 to 8] How are false and impossible different in IX 4?

That you are standing may be false now but still possible. A contradictory or mathematically impossible result cannot become true merely because it has not yet been attempted.

[CORE] [Metaphysics IX 1 to 8] What is actuality?

A thing's determinate being or fulfilled activity corresponding to what could otherwise be only potential: seeing rather than merely having sight, or formed material rather than material able to receive the form.

[CORE] [Metaphysics IX 1 to 8] What is first actuality in the lecture's seeing example?

Possessing the developed power of sight, even when not presently seeing. It is actual relative to lacking the faculty and potential relative to exercising it.

[CORE] [Metaphysics IX 1 to 8] What is second actuality in the lecture's seeing example?

Actually seeing, the exercise of the already possessed faculty. Having the faculty is also called second potency relative to this activity.

[CORE] [Metaphysics IX 1 to 8] Why is actuality prior in definition?

We define a capacity by its actual fulfillment: the ability to see is understood through seeing, and the ability to build through building.

[CORE] [Metaphysics IX 1 to 8] How is actuality prior in time with qualifications?

This individual's potency can precede its fulfillment, but an already actual agent precedes and brings about that development: an adult generates the child, and an actual teacher trains the learner.

[CORE] [Metaphysics IX 1 to 8] Why is actuality prior in substance or perfection?

Fulfillment is the end for which the capacity exists. We have sight in order to see; we do not see merely in order to possess the unused faculty.

[CORE] [Metaphysics IX 1 to 8] What is motion in the definition used by your professor?

The actuality of what is potential insofar as it is potential. A capacity is actively being realized but has not yet reached the relevant completed result.

[CORE] [Metaphysics XII 1 to 7] What three kinds of substance begin XII?

Sensible perishable substances; sensible eternal substances; and immovable substance. Examples in Aristotle's cosmology are organisms, celestial bodies, and the unmoved mover.

[CORE] [Metaphysics XII 1 to 7] What broad principles apply beyond sensible matter and form?

Act and potency. Your notes emphasize that they extend to thinking and other nonmaterial activities, making them central to metaphysics as a whole.

[CORE] [Metaphysics XII 1 to 7] Why must an eternal substance exist in XII 6?

If all substances were perishable, everything could cease; Aristotle takes motion and time to be eternal and argues that their continuation requires an eternal principle.

[CORE] [Metaphysics XII 1 to 7] Why must the ultimate mover be pure actuality?

If its activity depended on an unrealized potential, another actualizing cause would be required. The ultimate explanation must be eternally actual rather than waiting to be activated.

[CORE] [Metaphysics XII 1 to 7] What is the basic unmoved mover argument in your professor's notes?

What is moved eternally requires an eternal unmoved mover; the heavenly bodies move eternally; therefore they require an eternal unmoved mover. Explain the need for eternal actuality rather than only reciting the syllogism.

[CORE] [Metaphysics XII 1 to 7] How can the unmoved mover move without itself being moved?

As an object of desire or thought: what is loved or understood can attract activity without being physically altered by that activity. It moves as a final cause.