here really speculative. “Thinking,” he says (De Anima, III. 4) “is not
passive (ἀπαθές), but receptive of the form, and is in potentiality
similar to it. Therefore the understanding (νοῦς), because it thinks
all things, is free from all admixture (ἀμιγής), in order that it may
overcome (κρατῇ), as Anaxagoras says, that is, in order that it may
acquire knowledge; for, coming forth in its energy (παρεμφαινόμενον),
it holds back what is alien to it, and fortifies itself against it
(ἀντιφράττει). Therefore the nature of the understanding is none other
than this potentiality.” But potentiality itself is here not matter;
that is to say, the understanding has no matter, for potentiality
pertains to its very substance. For thinking is really the not
being implicit; and on account of its purity its reality is not the
being-for-another, but its potentiality is itself a being-for-self.
A thing is real because it is this determinate thing; the opposite
determination, its potentiality to be, for instance, smoke, ashes,
and so on, is not posited in it. In the corporeal, therefore, matter,
as potentiality, and external form, as reality, are opposed to one
another; but the soul is, in contrast with this, universal potentiality
itself, without matter, because its essence is energy. “Understanding,
then, in the soul, as that which possesses consciousness, is nothing in
reality before it thinks;” it is absolute activity, but exists only
when it is active. “It is therefore not incorporated with the body. For
what should it be like, warm or cold? Or should it be an organ? But it
is none of these. That it is, however, different from the faculty of
sense-perception is clear. For sense-perception cannot perceive after
a violent perception; for instance, it cannot smell nor see after
experiencing strong smells or colours. But the understanding, after
it has thought something which can only be thought with difficulty,
will not have more but less difficulty in thinking of something that
is easier. For there is no sense-perception independent of the body,
but the understanding is separable from it. When it has then become
something individual, like him who is really possessed of a faculty of
knowing (and this happens when he can energize through himself), it
then is also in a certain degree according to potentiality, but yet not
so in the same manner as it was before learning and finding.” (_Cf._
_supra_, pp. 182, 187.)
Thinking makes itself into passive understanding, that is, into what
is for it the objective; and thus it here becomes plain to what extent
the dictum _nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensu_ expresses
Aristotle’s meaning. Aristotle, raising difficulties, goes on to ask,
“If reason is simple and unaffected by impressions, and has nothing
in common with other objects, how can it think, since thinking is
certainly a state of receptivity?” That is to say, in thinking there
is a reference to an object distinct from itself. “For it is when two
objects have something in common that the one appears to produce and
the other to receive an impression. There is a further difficulty,
whether understanding can itself be the object of thought. In that case
understanding would either be inherent in other things—unless it is the
object of thought in a different sense from that in which other things
are so, but there is only one sense in which things can be objects of
thought—or, on the other hand, it would have something compounded with
it, making it an object of thought as other things are. Now it has
been already said that passivity is so determined that understanding
is in potentiality all that thought is exercised on: but at the same
time it is in actuality nothing before the exercise of thought.” That
is to say, thought is implicitly the content of the object of what is
thought, and in coming into existence it only coincides with itself;
but the self-conscious understanding is not merely implicit, but
essentially explicit, since it is within itself all things. That is an
idealistic way of expressing it; and yet they say that Aristotle is an
empiricist.
The passivity of understanding has therefore here only the sense of
potentiality before actuality, and that is the great principle of
Aristotle; in regard to this he brings forward at the end of the same
chapter another much-decried illustration, which has been just as much
misunderstood as the preceding. “Reason is like a book upon whose
pages nothing is actually written;” that is, however, paper, but not
a book. All Aristotle’s thoughts are overlooked, and only external
illustrations such as this are comprehended. A book on which nothing
is written everyone can understand. And the technical term is the
well-known _tabula rasa_, which is to be found wherever Aristotle is
spoken of: Aristotle is said to have alleged that the mind is a blank
page, on which characters are first traced by external objects, so
that thinking thus comes to it from without.[99] But that is the very
opposite of what Aristotle says. Instead of the Notion being adhered
to, casual comparisons such as these have been caught up here and
there by the imagination, as if they expressed the matter itself.
But Aristotle did not in the least intend that the analogy should be
pushed to its furthest extent: the understanding is of a surety not a
thing, and has not the passivity of a writing-tablet; it is itself the
energy, which is not, as it would be in the case of a tablet, external
to it. The analogy is therefore confined to this, that the soul has a
content only in so far as actual thought is exercised. The soul is this
book unwritten on, and the meaning consequently is that the soul is all
things implicitly, but it is not in itself this totality; it is like
a book that contains all things potentially, but in reality contains
nothing before it is written on. Before real activity nothing truly
exists; or “Understanding itself can enter thought, like the objects
of thought in general. For in that which is without matter” (in mind),
“the thinker” (the subjective) “and the thought” (the objective) “are
the same; theoretical knowledge and that which comes to be known are
the same. In that which is material, thinking is only in potentiality,
so that understanding itself does not belong to it; for understanding
is a potentiality without matter, but the object of thought exists in
it,” while Nature contains the Idea only implicitly. It is plain from
this that the above illustration has been taken in quite a false sense,
utterly contrary to Aristotle’s meaning.
Until now we have spoken of the passive understanding, which is
the nature of the soul, but also in equal degree its faculty of
sense-perception and imagination. Aristotle now proceeds to distinguish
active understanding from this, as follows (De Anima, III. 5): “In
nature as a whole there is present in every species of things, on the
one hand, matter, which in potentiality is the whole of this species,
and, on the other hand, cause and energy, operative in all things, in
the same way that art is related to matter. It therefore necessarily
follows that in the soul also these different elements should be
present. The faculty of understanding is thus, in one view of it, the
capacity of becoming all things; but in another view it is the capacity
of creating all things, as is done by an efficient power (ἕξις),
light, for instance, which first causes the colours which exist in
potentiality to exist in reality. This understanding is absolute
(χωριστός), uncompounded, and not influenced from without, as it is
essentially activity. For the active is always more in honour than
the passive, and the principle more in honour than the matter that it
forms. Knowledge, when in active exercise, is identical with the thing
(πρᾶγμα) known; but what is in potentiality” (that is, external reason,
imagination, sense-perception) “is certainly prior in respect of time
in one and the same individual, but in the universal (ὅλως) it is not
even so in respect of time. Active understanding is not such that it
sometimes thinks and sometimes does not. When it is absolute, it is the
one and only existence; and this alone is eternal and immortal. We,
however, do not remember this process, because this understanding is
unaffected from without; but the passive understanding is transitory,
and without the former it is incapable of thought.”
The seventh and eighth chapters are expositions of the maxims contained
in the fourth and fifth; they begin with these maxims, and have the
appearance of being from the hand of a commentator. “The soul,” says
Aristotle (De Anima, III. 8), “is in a certain sense the whole of
existence. For existent objects are either perceived by the senses or
thought; but knowledge itself is in a manner the object of knowledge,
and perception the object of perception. What are known and perceived
are either the things themselves or their forms. Knowledge and
sense-perception are not the things themselves (the stone is not in the
soul), but their form; so that the soul is like the hand. As this is
the instrument by which we grasp instruments, so the understanding is
the form by which we apprehend forms, and sense-perception the form of
the objects cf sense.” Before this Aristotle had remarked (De Anima,
III. 4): “It has been truly said that the soul is the _place of ideas_
(τόπος εἰδῶν): not the whole soul, but only the thinking soul, and
these ideas do not exist in the soul actually, but only potentially.”
That is to say, the ideas are at first only quiescent forms, not
activities, and so Aristotle is not a realist. But the understanding
makes these forms, like those of external nature, its objects, its
thoughts, its potentiality, Aristotle therefore says in the seventh
chapter: “The understanding thinks the abstract (τὰ ἐν ἀφαιρέσει
λεγόμενα), just as it conceives snubnosedness not as snubnosedness
that cannot be separated from the flesh, but as hollowness.” Then in
the eighth chapter Aristotle goes on to say: “But as no object is
separated from its perceived dimensions, so in the forms perceived by
sense there are also objects of thought, both abstract conceptions
and the qualities (ἕξεις) and determinations of the objects of sense.
In this way he who perceives nothing by his senses learns nothing
and understands nothing; when he discerns anything (θεωρῇ), he must
necessarily discern it as a pictorial conception, for such conceptions
are like sense-perceptions, only without matter. In what way then
are our primary ideas distinguished, so as not to be mistaken for
conceptions? Or is it not the case also that other thoughts even
are not pictorial conceptions, but only that they are never found
unassociated with such conceptions?” Since what follows contains no
answer to the questions raised here at the very end, this would seem an
additional indication that these portions follow later.[100] Aristotle
concludes the seventh chapter with the words: “Speaking generally,
the understanding is the faculty which thinks things in their real
activity. Whether, however, it can think the absolute or not, unless
it be itself separated from the sensuous, we shall inquire later
(ὕστερον).” This “later” Buhle considers to have reference to the
“highest philosophy.”[101]
This identity of the subjective and objective, which is present
in the active understanding—while finite things and mental states
are respectively one separated from the other, because there the
understanding is only in potentiality—is the highest point which
speculation can reach: and in it Aristotle reverts to his metaphysical
principles (p. 147), where he termed self-thinking reason absolute
Thought, divine Understanding, or Mind in its absolute character. It
is only in appearance that thought is spoken of as on a level with
what is other than thought; this fashion of bringing what is different
into conjunction certainly appears in Aristotle. But what he says of
thought is explicitly and absolutely speculative, and is not on the
same level with anything else, such as sense-perception, which has only
potentiality for thought. This fact is moreover involved, that reason
is implicitly the true totality, but in that case thought is in truth
the activity which is independent and absolute existence; that is,
the thought of Thought, which is determined thus abstractly, but which
constitutes the nature of absolute mind explicitly. These are the main
points which are to be taken note of in Aristotle with regard to his
speculative ideas, which it is impossible for us, however, to treat in
greater detail.
We have now to pass on to what follows, which is a practical
philosophy, and in doing so we must first establish firmly the
conception of desire, which is really the turning round of thought into
its negative side, wherein it becomes practical. Aristotle (De Anima,
III. 7 and 6) says: “The object of knowledge and active knowledge are
one and the same; what is in potentiality is in the individual prior in
point of time, although not so in itself. For all that comes into being
originates from that which operates actively. The object perceived
by sense appears as that which causes the faculty of perception in
potentiality to become the faculty of perception in actuality, for the
latter is not receptive of influence, and does not undergo change. On
that account it has a different kind of movement from the ordinary, for
movement, as we have seen (p. 163) is the activity of an unaccomplished
end (ἐνέργεια ἀτελοῦς); pure activity (ἁπλῶς ἐνέργεια), on the
contrary, is that of the accomplished end (τοῦ τετελεσμένον).”—“The
simple thoughts of the soul are such that in regard to them there
can be no falsity; but that in which there is falsity or truth is a
combination of thoughts as constituting one conception; for example,
‘the diameter is incommensurate.’ Or if by mistake white has been
stated to be not white, not-white has been brought into connection with
it. All this process may, however, just as well be termed separation.
But that which makes everything one is reason, which in the form of its
thinking thinks the undivided in undivided time and with the undivided
action of the soul.”—“Sense-perception resembles simple assertion and
thought, but pleasant or unpleasant sense-perception has the relation
of affirmation or negation,” therefore of the positive and negative
determination of thought. “And to perceive the pleasant or unpleasant
is to employ the activity” (spontaneity) “of the middle state of
sense-perception upon good or evil, in so far as they are such. But
desire and aversion are the same in energy; it is only in manifestation
that they are different. To the reasoning soul pictorial conceptions
take the place of sense-perceptions, and when the mind affirms or
denies something to be good or bad, it desires or avoids its object.
It has the relation both of unity and limit. The understanding,” as
that which determines opposites, “recognizes the forms underlying
pictorial conceptions; and in the same manner as what is desirable in
them and what is to be avoided have been determined for it, so it also
is determined independently of actual sense-perceptions when it is in
mental conceptions. And when, in dealing with conception or thought,
as if seeing them, it compares the future with the present and passes
judgment accordingly, and determines what is pleasant or unpleasant in
this respect; it desires or seeks to avoid it, and in general it finds
itself in practical operation. But independently of action true and
false are of the same character as good or evil.”
b. PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY.
From this the conception of will, or the practical element is shown to
us, and it has to be reckoned as still belonging to the Philosophy of
Mind. Aristotle has treated it in several works which we now possess.
α. ETHICS.
We have three great ethical works: the Nicomachean Ethics (Ἠθικὰ
Νικομάχεια) in ten books, the Magna Moralia (Ἠθικὰ μεγάλα) in two
books, and the Eudemean Ethics (Ἠθικὰ Εὐδήμια) in seven books; the
last deals for the most part with particular virtues, while in the
first two general investigations on the principles are contained. Just
as the best that we even now possess in reference to psychology is what
we have obtained from Aristotle, so is it with his reflections on the
actual agent in volition, on freedom, and the further determinations of
imputation, intention, &c. We must simply give ourselves the trouble to
understand these, and to translate them into our own form of speech,
conception and thought; and this is certainly difficult. Aristotle
follows the same course here as in his Physics, determining one
after the other, in the most thorough and accurate fashion, the many
moments which appear in desire: the purpose, the decision, voluntary
or forced action, the act of ignorance, guilt, moral responsibility,
&c. I cannot enter upon this somewhat psychological presentation of
the subject.[102] I shall only make the following remarks on the
Aristotelian definitions.
Aristotle[103] defines the principle of morality or the highest good,
as happiness (εὐδαιμονία), which later on became a much disputed
expression. It is good generally, not as abstract idea, but in such
a way that the moment of realization is what actually answers to it.
Aristotle thus does not content himself with the Platonic idea of the
good, because it is only general; with him the question is taken in
its determinateness. Aristotle then says that the good is what has its
end in itself (τέλειον). If we tried to translate τέλειον by “perfect”
here, we should translate it badly; it is that which, as having its end
(τὸ τέλος) in itself, is not desired for the sake of anything else,
but for its own sake (_supra_, pp. 162, 201). Aristotle determines
happiness in this regard as the absolute end existing in and for
itself, and gives the following definition of it: It is “the energy
of the life that has its end in itself in accordance with absolute
virtue (ζωῆς τελείας ἐνέργεια κατ̓ ἀρετὴν).” He makes rational insight
an essential condition; all action arising from sensuous desires, or
from lack of freedom generally, indicates lack of insight; it is an
irrational action, or an action which does not proceed from thought as
such. But the absolute rational activity is alone knowledge, the action
which in itself satisfies itself, and this is hence divine happiness;
with the other virtues, on the contrary, only human happiness is
obtained, just as from a theoretic point of view feeling is finite as
compared with divine thought. Aristotle goes on to say much that is
good and beautiful about virtue and the good and happiness in general,
and states that happiness, as the good attainable by us, is not to be
found without virtue, &c.; in all of which there is no profound insight
from a speculative point of view.
In regard to the conception of virtue I should like to say something
more. From a practical point of view, Aristotle[104] first of all
distinguishes in soul a rational and an irrational side; in the latter
reason only exists potentially; under it come the feelings, passions
and affections. On the rational side understanding, wisdom, discretion,
knowledge, have their place; but they still do not constitute virtue,
which first subsists in the unity of the rational and the irrational
sides. When the inclinations are so related to virtue that they carry
out its dictates, this, according to Aristotle, is virtue. When the
perception is either bad or altogether lacking, but the heart is good,
goodwill may be there, but not virtue, because the principle—that is
reason—which is essential to virtue, is wanting. Aristotle thus places
virtue in knowledge, yet reason is not, as many believe, the principle
of virtue purely in itself, for it is rather the rational impulse
towards what is good; both desire and reason are thus necessary
moments in virtue. Hence it cannot be said of virtue that it is
misemployed, for it itself is the employer. Thus Aristotle, as we have
already seen (Vol. I. pp. 412-414), blames Socrates, because he places
virtue in perception alone. There must be an irrational impulse towards
what is good, but reason comes in addition as that which judges and
determines the impulse; yet when a beginning from virtue has been made,
it does not necessarily follow that the passions are in accordance,
since often enough they are quite the reverse. Thus in virtue, because
it has realization as its aim, and pertains to the individual, reason
is not the solitary principle; for inclination is the force that
impels, the particular, which as far as the practical side of the
individual subject is concerned, is what makes for realization. But
then the subject must, in this separation of his activity, bring
likewise his passions under the subjection of the universal, and this
unity, in which the rational is pre-eminent, is virtue. This is the
correct determination; on the one hand this definition is opposed to
these ideals of the utter subjection of the passions, by which men
are guided from their youth up, and, on the other, it is opposed to
the point of view that declares desires to be good in themselves.
Both these extreme views have been frequent in modern times, just as
sometimes we hear that the man who by nature is beauteous and noble, is
better than he who acts from duty; and then it is said that duty must
be performed as duty, without taking into account the particular point
of view as a moment of the whole.
Aristotle then passes through the particular virtues at great length.
Because the virtues, considered as the union of the desiring or
realizing with the rational, have an illogical moment within them,
Aristotle places[105] their principle on the side of feeling in
a mean, so that virtue is the mean between two extremes; _e.g._
liberality is the mean between avarice and prodigality; gentleness
between passion and passive endurance; bravery between rashness and
cowardice; friendship between egotism and self-effacement, &c. For the
good, and specially that good which has to do with the senses, which
would suffer if affected to an excessive degree (_supra_, p. 195), is
therefore a mean, just because the sensuous is an ingredient in it.
This does not appear to be a sufficient definition, and it is merely
a quantitative determination, just because it is not only the Notion
that determines, but the empirical side is also present. Virtue is not
absolutely determined in itself, but likewise has a material element,
the nature of which is capable of a more or a less. Thus if it has been
objected to Aristotle’s definition of virtue as a difference in degree,
that it is unsatisfactory and vague, we may say that this really is
involved in the nature of the thing. Virtue, and determinate virtue in
its entirety, enters into a sphere where that which is quantitative has
a place; thought here is no more as such at home with itself, and the
quantitative limit undetermined. The nature of particular virtues is
of such a kind, that they are capable of no more exact determination;
they can only be spoken of in general, and for them there is no further
determination than just this indefinite one.[106] But in our way of
looking at things, duty is something absolutely existent in itself, and
not a mean between existent extremes through which it is determined;
but this universal likewise results in being empty, or rather
undetermined, while that determinate content is a moment of being that
immediately involves us in conflicting duties. It is in practice that
man seeks a necessity in man as individual, and endeavours to express
it; but it is either formal, or as in particular virtues, a definite
content, which, in so being, falls a prey to empiricism.
β. POLITICS.
We have still to speak of Aristotle’s Politics; he was conscious more
or less that the positive substance, the necessary organization and
realization of practical spirit, is the state, which is actualized
through subjective activity, so that this last finds in it its
determination and end. Aristotle hence also looks on political
philosophy as the sum total of practical philosophy, the end of the
state as general happiness. “All science and all capacity (δύναμις),”
he says (Magn. Mor. I. 1), “have an end, and this is the good: the
more excellent they are, the more excellent is their end; but the most
excellent capacity is the political, and hence its end is also the
good.” Of Ethics Aristotle recognizes that it indubitably also applies
to the individual, though its perfection is attained in the nation as
a whole. “Even if the highest good is the same for an individual and
for a whole state, it would yet surely be greater and more glorious
to win and maintain it for a state; to do this for an individual were
meritorious, but to do it for a nation and for whole states were more
noble and godlike still. Such is the object of practical science, and
this pertains in a measure to politics.”[107]