| Aristotle on Knowledge
At Metaphysics A.1, Aristotle traces the path of the acquisition of knowledge from perception to knowledge and technical science. Knowledge begins with perceptions, perceptions lead to memory, and many memories of similar perceptions form experience. From experience, we arrive at two kinds of scientific understanding: knowledge and technical science.
And experience seems nearly the same as knowledge and technical science, and knowledge and technical science come about from experience. For experience fashioned technical science, as Polus rightly says, while lack of experience fashioned chance. And technical science occurs whenever, from many ideas of experience, a single universal notion occurs from similar things. For having a notion that this thing cured Callias (who was sick with a certain illness) and Socrates and similarly many others, each in its own way, is a matter of experience. But having a notion that this thing cures all such men, designated as one class, who suffer from a certain illness—for example, the phlegmatic or choleric or those with burning fever—is a matter of technical science.
First, though they involve different objects, technical science and knowledge both involve an apprehension of what is universal; experience does not. Next, technical science and knowledge are built ultimately from an elaborate process of collecting and storing perceptions. The principles of both, then, are based on some form of gathering particulars that is similar to inductive generalization.
Yet, Aristotle cautions, people with experience are more successful than people with rational understanding who have no experience. The reason he gives is “experience is an understanding of particulars, while technical science is an understanding of what is universal, and all deeds and productions are concerned with particulars”. Physicians, he adds, cure particular men, like Callias and Socrates, directly; man, in general, they cure only accidentally. Therefore, one who knows only what is universal and gives a rational account without experience will often err in treatment. For therapy, he says, concerns what is particular.
Nevertheless only technical men possess wisdom. Aristotle elaborates:
Still, we think that knowing and expertise belong to technical science rather than experience, and we suppose that technicians are wiser than men of experience, so that, for all men, wisdom attends upon knowing instead. And this is because some men (technicians) know the cause, while others (non-technicians) do not. For men of experience know the fact, but they do not know the reason why; while others discover the reason why and the cause.
The sign of knowledge, he asserts, is the ability to teach. Because of this, in a sense, “technical science is knowledge, rather than experience”. This is why theoretical science is the most esteemed.
Thus, for Aristotle, there are three levels of scientific investigation. First, knowledge and only knowledge is knowledge n the true sense of the word. Starting from true premises that involve many experiences of things invariable, we gradually develop universal principles that are certain. From these, we syllogistically deduce true conclusions. Dealing with what is universal, knowledge is teachable. Knowledge, then, is pure theoretical science. Second, there is technical science. Technical science, like knowledge, begins with premises ultimately derived from many experiences of things. Yet unlike knowledge, these things, being items of manufacture, are variable. Thus, its premises are, at best, likely to be true and its conclusions are suspect and void of certainty. Nevertheless technical science, as productive science, involves causes (i.e., suspected causes, since its objects are variable) and is thus closer to real knowledge than experience. It, too, involving what is universal, is teachable. Last, experience is exclusively about particulars. Not involving what is universal, it is a knack for doing the right thing that is guided by a keen awareness of particular circumstances and past observations. Experience may be a useful guide to successful scientific practice, but it does not involve causes or what is universal and, thus, is not teachable. Most importantly, with no regard for what is universal, consistency is not an issue: It is quite possible that what has once worked under a certain set of circumstances will not again work. This is scientific knack.
Aristotle's "Causes" (Ph. II.3 & 7; Metaph. I.3):
I) Ph. II.3):
1) That from (out of) which (ôὸ ἐî ïὗ ãίíåôáί ôé ἐíõðάñ÷ïíôïò) (the matter; ἡ ὕëç): letters of syllables, matter of artifacts, fire and such of bodies, parts of the whole, and assumptions of the conclusion as bronze and silver are causes of the statue and bowl.
2) The account of the essence (ôὸ åἶäïò êáὶ ðáñάäåéãìá) (the what it is; ôὸ ôί ἐóôéí): the whole, composition, or form as the cause of an octave is the ration two to one.
3) The source of the primary principle of change or unchange (ἡ ἀñ÷ὴ ôῆò ìåôáâïëῆò ἡ ðñώôç ἢ ôῆò ἠñåìήóåùò) (what first initiated the motion; ôὸ êéíῆóáí ðñῶôïí): the seed, doctor, adviser, and, in general, producer as father is a cause of his child as the producer is the cause of his product.
4) The for-the-sake-of-which cause or the end (ôὸ ôέëïò; ôὸ ïὗ ἓíåêá) (the reason why; ôίíïò ἕíåêá): one thing is the cause of another by being the end and the good as health is a cause of walking, for we walk to be healthy.
Human being: Axe:
1) Flesh, blood, bone, etc. Iron and wood.
2) Having a capacity for reasoning. Having a capacity for chopping.
3) Seed of the father initiates motions. Actions of the axe-maker.
4) Being in a state of reasoning. Being in a state of chopping.
II) Ph. II.7:
“Since three are four of them, the student of nature ought to know them all; and in order to give the sort of reason that is appropriate for the study of nature, he must trace it back to all the causes: to the matter, to the form, to what initiated motion, and to what something is for. The last three often amount to one; for what something is and what it is for are one, and the first source of the motion is the same ins pieces as these, since a man generates a man; and the same is true generally of things that initiate motion by being in motion” (198a16-28).
“The reason why should be stated in all these ways. For instance, this necessarily results from that (either without exception or usually); if this is to be (as the conclusion from the premisses); that this is the essence; and because it is better thus—not unqualifiedly better, but better in relation to the essence of a given thing” (198b5-9).
III) Metaph. I.3:
“It is evident, then, that we must acquire knowledge of the original causes, since we say we know a thing whenever we think we know its primary cause. Causes are spoken of in four ways. One of these, we say, is the being and essence; for the reason why is traced back ultimately to the account, and the primary reason why is the cause and principle. Another is the matter and subject. A third is the source of the principle of motion. The fourth is what something is for, for instance, the good—the opposite to the third cause, since its is the end of all coming to be and motion” (983a24-32).
There follows an account of Presocratic attempts to explain all things in terms of material causes. Anaxagoras, as he is in Crito, is picked out for positing that mind exists. |
