[Serious] Thomism: Then & Now

[Neo-Scholastic]

OK, so let's say that these properties, characteristics, attributes etc. = essence.  Essence, therefore is the sum of the descriptors... information.

There's the thing (existing) and there's the information about the thing (essence).

OK, I'll have to ponder this some more. 

At the moment, I think you're talking about a description of the essence, but not the essence itself.

For example, it is a part of Socrates' essence that he can learn languages. (This is sort of a classic example.) So this ability is a part of his essence. But an ability is not information. It can not be transferred down a wire or communicated through smoke signals. Socrates' essence includes rationality. But rationality is not information, I think. 

I can describe a very large set of things which are essential to Socrates, but this description is not the essence itself. 

But I welcome additional input on the problem.

Yeah, it could be that the ancients did present various essences in a kind of dictionary definition format..."rational animal" comes to mind. And that kind of approach, if taken too extremes, leads to silly examples. In contrast to this, I think a more contemporary scholastic approach is to treat an individual essence as that which determines the range of possible actualizations of a thing. And here, I am not thinking just about the ontological status of sets of properties or material dispositions within a Newtonian framework. Since that reality is fundamentally quantum mechanical, and as such one that is largely statistical, that suggests that the scholastic concepts of "being-in-act" and "being-in-potency" may not be an entirely binary and mutually exclusive distinction. For example, at my age I could get a medical degree, sure, but it is highly, highly unlikely. IDW could you call that 0.001% being-in-potency now versus 1% being-in-potency when I was 17?

[vulcanlogician]

Neo, do you think anything Aquinas says is at odds with modern science? If not, what are your replies to HappySkeptic's concerns? If so, how would you adapt Aquinas's position to better accommodate what we know about the natural world?

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Neo, do you think anything Aquinas says is at odds with modern science? If not, what are your replies to HappySkeptic's concerns? If so, how would you adapt Aquinas's position to better accommodate what we know about the natural world?

I'm a poor philosopher, so may have missed the point.

I seem to remember Aristotle (?) claiming for example that it was an essence or quality which makes a thing say big or small. That a thing is big because it  contains the essence /quality of 'bigness'

Was it Aristotle who claimed that the speed of light was instantaneous?

[vulcanlogician]

I'm not really sure about that. But I don't know much about Aristotle.

As far as essence, Aristotle believed in a hylomorphic property in all things. Like, a chair has intelligible properties that make it a chair. But these aren't hard and fast rules. They are identifiable traits, or essences if you like, that make the thing essentially a chair. Say what you will about Aristotle's assumptions here, but I'll say one thing: the man thought that chairs do exist. When you start questioning that, it gets pretty weird. (As we learned in the chair thread.) Does that apply to things like "bigness" or "size." Well, maybe. I think Aristotle thought that size was a genuine property of extant things. But Plato was more the one who thought "bigness itself" was present in all big things. Aristotle kind of resisted that notion.

As for the speed of light, I'm sure many ancients assumed it was instantaneous. But, again, I don't know the particulars of Aristotle on this subject. I know one thing, Aristotle understood light better than Plato. Plato's understanding of light and optics is completely ass-backwards and as wrong as it could possibly be. Anything is an improvement upon that.

[Belacqua]

I seem to remember Aristotle (?) claiming for example that it was an essence or quality which makes a thing say big or small. That a thing is big because it  contains the essence /quality of 'bigness'

Generally we say that the essence of a thing is that set of qualities which make it itself and not another thing. 

The example I usually use is a T-shirt. We can define a clear set of qualities necessary for something to be a T-shirt: it has to have a hole for the head, two for the arms; it has to be of some wearable material (because a stone T-shirt would be a sculpture, not really a shirt); it has to be collarless, because if it has a collar it's a polo shirt. That's about all, I think. 

Then when we talk about accident, we can name all the things that can change while the T-shirt remains a T-shirt. It can be cotton or polyester; it can be white or black; it can have Nirvana on the front or the Rolling Stones. You could actually dye the shirt or iron a new picture onto it and it would remain a T-shirt. 

I'm not sure what you're thinking of in regards to "bigness." I think it's possible that in many cases, the size is part of the essence. For example, a T-shirt-shaped object 100 miles across wouldn't really be a T-shirt, I think. It would be a sculpture, or a joke, or something, but would lack wearability. So a range of "bigness" would be a essential quality of a T-shirt, but not in itself the essence. 

Maybe you're recalling some definition of big/small-ness, and how these qualities are always judged relative to something else? That sounds like something Aristotle would say.

Was it Aristotle who claimed that the speed of light was instantaneous?

Pretty much everybody assumed that light was instantaneous until the late 17th century. Dante, for example, takes it for granted. A Dutch guy finally demonstrated it had speed.

---

Aristotle understood light better than Plato. Plato's understanding of light and optics is completely ass-backwards and as wrong as it could possibly be. Anything is an improvement upon that.

As I recall both Plato and Aristotle thought that we see by sending out a ray from our eyeballs, which reflects back to us, like radar. I know Leonardo da Vinci believed the same thing, so this seems to have been the standard idea for a while. 

It's wrong scientifically, but I think feels right psychologically. Just because we see by receiving light from outside, doesn't mean that we perceive passively, taking in whatever happens to hit the retina. Think of how phenomenologists use the word "intentionality." We see the world by looking out for things, with purpose and judgment built in. 

I've probably mentioned before a trick that I do with students sometimes. I have them all look at the ceiling, and then ask them what color are the chairs they're sitting in. Surprisingly often they can't say. (This is especially true if we're in a boring classroom.) When they come into the room they look around sufficiently to sit properly and not fall on the floor, but because they weren't interested in the color of the chair it didn't register with them. 

So we see as if we were sending out probes, getting only the information we are interested in.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Neo, do you think anything Aquinas says is at odds with modern science? If not, what are your replies to HappySkeptic's concerns? If so, how would you adapt Aquinas's position to better accommodate what we know about the natural world?

I do not know what examples could be found in his entire body of work. With respect to the demonstrations ofthe 5 Ways, I have already stated that the analogies do not work. That said, I do not think the metaphysical claims about potency and actuality, etc. of Aquinas are in any way undermined by the findings of modern physics. That does not make them true,...just not obviously wrong and certainly not silly as some claimed.

Similarly, it seems a bit irrational to say the 5W must be wrong because Aquinas held false beliefs about unrelated topics like the speed of light or the nature of combustion.

[The Grand Nudger]

It seems as though we've foreclosed on any possibility of a thomism now if we're wedded to the insistence that thomism then couldn't be improved upon by reformulating them as valid arguments with sound premises.

[LadyForCamus]

I seem to remember Aristotle (?) claiming for example that it was an essence or quality which makes a thing say big or small. That a thing is big because it  contains the essence /quality of 'bigness'

Generally we say that the essence of a thing is that set of qualities which make it itself and not another thing. 

The example I usually use is a T-shirt. We can define a clear set of qualities necessary for something to be a T-shirt: it has to have a hole for the head, two for the arms; it has to be of some wearable material (because a stone T-shirt would be a sculpture, not really a shirt); it has to be collarless, because if it has a collar it's a polo shirt. That's about all, I think. 

Then when we talk about accident, we can name all the things that can change while the T-shirt remains a T-shirt. It can be cotton or polyester; it can be white or black; it can have Nirvana on the front or the Rolling Stones. You could actually dye the shirt or iron a new picture onto it and it would remain a T-shirt. 

I'm not sure what you're thinking of in regards to "bigness." I think it's possible that in many cases, the size is part of the essence. For example, a T-shirt-shaped object 100 miles across wouldn't really be a T-shirt, I think. It would be a sculpture, or a joke, or something, but would lack wearability. So a range of "bigness" would be a essential quality of a T-shirt, but not in itself the essence. 

Maybe you're recalling some definition of big/small-ness, and how these qualities are always judged relative to something else? That sounds like something Aristotle would say.

Was it Aristotle who claimed that the speed of light was instantaneous?

Pretty much everybody assumed that light was instantaneous until the late 17th century. Dante, for example, takes it for granted. A Dutch guy finally demonstrated it had speed.

---

Aristotle understood light better than Plato. Plato's understanding of light and optics is completely ass-backwards and as wrong as it could possibly be. Anything is an improvement upon that.

As I recall both Plato and Aristotle thought that we see by sending out a ray from our eyeballs, which reflects back to us, like radar. I know Leonardo da Vinci believed the same thing, so this seems to have been the standard idea for a while. 

It's wrong scientifically, but I think feels right psychologically. Just because we see by receiving light from outside, doesn't mean that we perceive passively, taking in whatever happens to hit the retina. Think of how phenomenologists use the word "intentionality." We see the world by looking out for things, with purpose and judgment built in. 

I've probably mentioned before a trick that I do with students sometimes. I have them all look at the ceiling, and then ask them what color are the chairs they're sitting in. Surprisingly often they can't say. (This is especially true if we're in a boring classroom.) When they come into the room they look around sufficiently to sit properly and not fall on the floor, but because they weren't interested in the color of the chair it didn't register with them. 

So we see as if we were sending out probes, getting only the information we are interested in.

Bel, are you a teacher?

[Belacqua]

Bel, are you a teacher?

Not affiliated with any school. People invite me to do private classes, mostly on art or the intersection of art with philosophy and religion. 

Some classes meet at a free meeting area in the park, and some at the office of a company that makes Buddhist home altars (the owner of the company enjoys this stuff). 

Current classes: British Aestheticism and French Decadence, and their influence on Japanese literature since the Meiji Period. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. William Blake's illustrations for Dante. The recurring classical style in European art.

[LadyForCamus]

Bel, are you a teacher?

Not affiliated with any school. People invite me to do private classes, mostly on art or the intersection of art with philosophy and religion. 

Some classes meet at a free meeting area in the park, and some at the office of a company that makes Buddhist home altars (the owner of the company enjoys this stuff). 

Current classes: British Aestheticism and French Decadence, and their influence on Japanese literature since the Meiji Period. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. William Blake's illustrations for Dante. The recurring classical style in European art.

Impressive! I’m sure you’re a fine mentor.