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The Problem of Universals: A Conversation with Gyula Klima
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In this episode, Sam Bennett speaks with Gyula Klima about the medieval problem of universals and the philosophical issues that arise when we try to explain how universal cognition of singular things is possible. Klima begins with his intellectual background and then walks through the problem as it develops from Plato’s ideal objects and the challenge posed by the Third Man argument, to Aristotle’s account of abstraction and universal concepts. He discusses Augustine’s placement of universals in the divine mind, Boethius’s and Abelard’s efforts to explain how features separable in thought need not be separable in reality, and Aquinas’s account of common natures and universal concepts as the shared objects of individual acts of understanding.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome back to the Dynasties Circle podcast. I'm delighted to share this conversation with Dula Klima, one of the leading scholars in medieval philosophy, especially metaphysics, logic, and the philosophy of language. um In this interview, we discuss a central medieval issue, the problem of universals.
00:00:17
Speaker
It's really a cluster of questions, but um for Klima, The questions kind of center on the puzzle of universal cognition. So the puzzle is basically, you know, how can the mind possess universal knowledge such as, you know, ah knowing that every right triangle, um for every right triangle, A squared plus B squared equals C squared. So the question is, how can the mind possess such universal knowledge when it only ever encounters singular particular things?
Klima's Background and Philosophical Journey
00:00:48
Speaker
um So I began the conversation by asking Klima about his background and how he first came to philosophy. Well, I was born in Hungary, Budapest, still behind the Iron Curtain, right into the middle of the Hungarian Revolution, which is why I was born at home and not in a hospital, um because so um a Soviet tank just destroyed the hospital where my mom would have been taken
00:01:18
Speaker
um with me and to and and to give birth to me. Well, in any case, so it was and a nice um suburban area in the outskirts of Budapest called Chilake, Star Hill.
00:01:35
Speaker
And I was so raised there, went to school um in the area, went to high school as well in Budapest, got all my degrees. In Hungary, how on earth did I get into philosophy? As far as I can tell, I've always had philosophical questions. So when since I can remember, I had philosophical questions, although at the time i didn't know they were philosophical. And so um
00:02:07
Speaker
um but I always wanted to understand ah everything, but everything is too much. So I i figured that ah perhaps um ah the most sensible and practical focus of my universalistic interest would be focusing on the human mind, because everything is filtered through the mind. and ah How do we get to know about anything?
00:02:36
Speaker
And perhaps through that, everything. And so um I started thinking about um um the mechanisms, the workings of the mind. And um at the time, of course, I naively identified the mind with the brain. which drove me toward biology, chemistry, neurophysiology. So I majored in chemistry in high school and in biology and in my early university studies. But as I got into the nitty-gritty of natural science, I realized that um most of my questions were conceptual rather than empirical.
00:03:20
Speaker
which is why i've after the first year I swapped out chemistry for philosophy and after a third year I swapped out biology for aesthetics.
Universal Knowledge and Mathematical Concepts
00:03:31
Speaker
So I ended up with a diploma in philosophy and aesthetics.
00:03:36
Speaker
Great. So today, you know, we're going to be kind of discussing issues that come up in your article, The Medieval Problem of Universals from the Stanford Encyclopedia of a Philosophy. So maybe we could just start off like what would be a really rough, simple characterization of the problem of universals?
00:03:55
Speaker
So with the first motivation is an epistemic question. How is it possible that I know or potential infinity of singular things that belong to the same kind, that I recognize as belonging to the same kind?
00:04:12
Speaker
um So, obviously, this kind of universal question, this kind of universal knowledge cannot be in attained by um going over one by one one um and one by one all the singulars that fall under the um the subject of such a universal claim because um they are potentially infinite. And we always have a finite lifetime and even human history is a finite, etc. So um the finitude of our physical being is confronted with the um potential infinity of universal knowledge.
00:04:58
Speaker
So how is that possible? Right. So if like we consider like an example, like the Pythagorean theorem, that's a case where we know about a potential infinite number of right triangles that, you know, A squared plus B with b squared equals c C squared, the hypotenuse squared. Right. and And in there, it's like, yeah, it's not as though we could go one by one through every right triangle and discover, oh, look, it's Again and again, the the hypotenuse squared is equal to the... We have to measure, right? And take measurements, etc. And ah in fact, ah that would be a very um imprecise method. Because whenever we draw an empirical physical triangle, a visible one, then ah it is obviously going to fall short of what we have in mind.
00:05:55
Speaker
um A triangle straight lines street being um ah ah a geometrical shape um ah constituted by three straight lines, which are supposed to be one-dimensional without a width.
00:06:15
Speaker
But ah have you ever seen
00:06:20
Speaker
line without a width? Of course not. So, ah but um the theorem, strictly speaking, applies only to that sort of a triangle, right? Right, yeah. in In your article, it's pretty funny. you So, you talk about Thales' theorem in your article, and, you know, obviously that pertains to a circle and then a semicircle in a circle and then inscribing a triangle in the semicircle. And it's funny where you you go, well, let's zoom in on the the circle that we drew. And you know if you zoom in, it's actually just a series of jagged edges. It's not exactly it's ah it's not not at all like what are what we are supposed to have in mind. So what is ah where does that kind of object come into our consciousness? That was but Plato's first question. When we are ah talking about circle, geometrically perfect circle, or a sphere, a geometrically perfect sphere, we have an understanding of the object. as being
00:07:27
Speaker
ah a shape on a plane or a shape in space in 3D.
00:07:37
Speaker
All of the points of ah which are equidistant from a given point, namely the center. right But ah how can these be um precisely equidistant from a given point? Let's say, just ah let's just take the circle.
00:07:55
Speaker
If um the circle would have these ah um several points giving width to the a perimeter of the circle or the circumference of the circle, right? The circumference also would have to be an unextended line so that every point on that line can be precisely equidistant from the given point, the center of the circle, right?
Plato and Aristotle on Universals
00:08:25
Speaker
And so we cannot possibly see such an object, right? Right. so it's So not only can we not review every last, let's say, right triangle to reach the Pythagorean theorem, even a particular...
00:08:41
Speaker
given visible right triangle. It's not exactly what this demonstration is about. Right. Perfect. Yeah. And so, so good. So yeah we'll we'll get a little bit more into this, um into this line of thought in a second, but you know, just to review real quick, it's like, yeah, like you said, you know, that the medieval problem of universals, the way you look at it is a bundle of kind of related epistemological metaphysical logical problems. But They all kind of center around this issue of how is it possible that ah we have universal cognition, universal knowledge, knowledge such as, yeah, for every right triangle, A squared plus B squared equals C squared. Or, you know, every triangle, the interior angles add up to 180 or something like that. So um anyway, so yeah, so that's kind of... um
00:09:29
Speaker
the way you characterize it. And maybe before we go further into motivating the problem of universals, because basically, you know, the way you, you kind of describe is like this problem of universals, it's not a historical curiosity. It just kind of arises naturally when you think about, um, ah for example, a geometric demonstration. Um, before we get into that, can you kind of just,
00:09:55
Speaker
map really quickly map some of the positions that developed around um the problem of universal. We don't need tons of detail, but just kind of a sense for the listeners of the basic options and the thinkers associated with those options.
00:10:10
Speaker
Yeah. So it all started with Plato, pretty much motivated by the line of thought that we started out with. That is, ah Apparently, we can have universal knowledge based on ah having this awareness of these ideal objects that we cannot really find in our empirical environment. And yet, ah somehow, we have this awareness of these ideal objects. um The empirical objects are just at best approximations to these ideal objects. But our for instance, our geometrical demonstrations obviously are not about these empirical objects, but about the ideal objects that we have in mind.
00:10:59
Speaker
And what we have in mind, however, is just ah more or less approximated by the empirical objects in our sensible environment. So what is the relationship between this ideal object and this sensible physical object, the singulars, which ah somehow ah imitate and share in the features of that ideal object that we have in mind. So Plato's idea was that ah there must be a different realm of reality.
00:11:34
Speaker
In fact, a more perfect realm of reality in which these ideal objects exist. And that is what he called the forms or the ideas that are the exemplars, the exemplary causes of whatever we can find in our environment, more or less approaching that ah ideal object. So the several pearls, pilliard balls,
00:12:03
Speaker
I wouldn't say footballs, because American footballs. but but So all sorts of balls are approximated to the ideal sphere, right?
00:12:15
Speaker
So, um and um yet, the ah but when we are talking about geometrical objects,
00:12:27
Speaker
ah Those are the things that we have these universal demonstrations about, right? And so when we are um ah making the demonstration of the Euclidean theorem about the internal angles of any triangle, then um we have in mind um this universal triangle that is the exemplar of all visible triangles we can ever draw or we can ever construct as, say, the sign of a pyramid, et cetera, et cetera, which are obviously not those ideal objects, but somehow partake in the um
00:13:15
Speaker
features of the ideal objects, and that is why geometry is applicable to physical things as well. So Plato's um original idea was is that there must be this different a realm of ideal objects that we somehow ah must have gotten in contact with maybe in a different form of existence in this ah embodied form of existence that is our souls before entering the body, um ah getting in contact ah with these ideal objects, got this awareness. So that would be naive platonic realism. So it's like we have a geometric proof, let's say of, you know, whatever it is, Thales theorem or the Pythagorean theorem, and maybe, you know,
00:14:07
Speaker
as we remember in our geometry class and in middle school and stuff, you know, you you generally would, you know, you'd have a figure drawn out, you know, whether it's on the paper or in the sand or something, you'd have a figure drawn out, um, which you would be the kind of reasoning with or through to reach, uh, the particular geometric conclusion. And i think that the platonic idea is like, well, you know, that particular figure that you drew in the sand, it's not,
00:14:35
Speaker
In a sense, it's not genuinely a triangle because, for example, the lines aren't all straight. they have width, like you said earlier. um and so what was really that geometric proof about? it was actually about an ideal object, something that we act that we kind of saw with our understanding. It's what we have in mind. it's ah It's what we intellectually understand. And the drawn figure is just um something that helps, a reminder. um and ah ah aiding, ah keeping track of ah your thought during or um in the course of the demonstration. right So now I'm talking about this side, that side, that side, and the parallel running through the base, extended, etc. But obviously,
00:15:26
Speaker
um but ah obviously The demonstration is not about that figure and especially not that particular figure because that figure just stands in for the universal object, which is the exemplar exemplar of all possible um triangles that can ever be drawn.
00:15:46
Speaker
and And what allows us to have this knowledge of, so for example, with a Pythagorean theorem, what allows us to know something about ah potentially infinite number of right triangles What allows us to know, i guess, a fact about each of these potentially infinite number of right triangles is our knowledge of that ideal form, that ideal
Medieval Developments in Philosophy
00:16:08
Speaker
object. so we know this ideal triangle, which is kind of in, as it were, some platonic heaven.
00:16:15
Speaker
And in virtue of knowing that we then can know something about all the objects that imitate it um And so, yeah, like, and we'll go into this more, but, you know, that's the platonic position. We'll talk about in a moment, you know, kind of Boethius's arguments against this sort of platonic realism. But maybe at this point, could you just, yeah, briefly just talk a little bit about, you know, what's another realist position that...
00:16:41
Speaker
that Well, another has obviously other positions um are motivated by ah the flaws in the original Naive Platonic theory that Plato himself already recognized in his Parmenides.
00:16:57
Speaker
ah He was the first to ah come up with an argument that became famous ah as the third man argument um um that was presented by Aristotle in that form.
00:17:13
Speaker
um Plato's argument deals with the idea of greatness. It doesn't really matter what particular example we are taking. But um it draws out an inconsistency from um Plato's naive theory of forms. so um there had to be some alternative solution to the original problem. that If um Plato's theory is inconsistent, then what else can we say about ah the original problem of the possibility of universal knowledge?
00:17:46
Speaker
And so... um Aristotle capal i came up with an alternative solution, which is the, let's say, the grandfather of all conceptualist solutions. That is, ah universals are not um um and sort of different ideal realm of entities, but rather um ah The universals are universally representing concepts of our minds. And I will ah motivate this with a further argument pointing out exactly what kind of inconsistency um Plato's theory contains and how Aristotle's ah theory of of abstraction, we are going to get into that too, um avoids that sort of inconsistency, but raises a number of further problems. That is, ah okay, we have these abstract concepts in our minds. What are these concepts? How are they related to the singularist? Again, so we have um another
00:18:57
Speaker
ah ontological problems stemming from the epistemic question, right? And then it is that ontological problem problem ah about these universal objects of our minds. So what are they then?
00:19:11
Speaker
If they are not existing in a separate realm in the platonic heaven of ideas, then man what are these ghastly non-entities that we are still always aware of, okay? And how do we get into ah them and how we can apply them to, um again, visible, concrete, physical objects. Now, that um a led to a number of ah further refinements of the original, ah somewhat sketchy Aristotelian idea, and became very much at the um paradigmatic sort of conceptualism
00:20:04
Speaker
um ah up to the 13th century, let's say, late 13th, early 14th century, which um um conceived of universe ah universals as ah universal representations of singulars in the mind.
00:20:27
Speaker
But um that led to a number of further issues in metaphysics, very complicated, very hair-splitting distinctions, um culminating in the um theory of for formal distinction in John Don Scutus, which was the direct motivation for William Ockham to try to start with a clean slate.
00:20:55
Speaker
Okay, so this is way too complicated. And as he would say, it is all just stemming from bad logic. and because these people don't understand um how um the natural logic of the human mind is working. And so he came up with much, much reduced ontology in the first place, which he can, at the same time,
00:21:26
Speaker
um a present as ah the adequate picture of reality um onto which all are because all our concepts can be mapped.
00:21:41
Speaker
So basically I could characterize his program as, see how much logic and semantics I can do with with how few and how little an ology. Okay, so so that is pretty much the the nominalist program.
00:21:59
Speaker
that is um coming up with a much reduced ontology and um um explaining everything, um ah the um all those um um conceptual ah mechanisms that are needed in explaining um the workings of our minds.
Transition from Via Antiqua to Via Moderna
00:22:22
Speaker
within the realm of concepts, but also the realm of concepts um themselves, the concepts themselves, were reinterpreted by Alckham, that is what ah these concepts are and how they are related to the objects they represent, um would radically redraw the map, as it were, of the Aristotelian semantic triangle, that is the relationship between um
00:22:55
Speaker
words, concepts, and things. That is how words become meaningful on account of being related to our concepts, whereby we conceive of things. Now, how this um semantic triangle is worded out in detail as um radically different already in this non-humanist conception, which um ah had again um incredibly important and far-reaching epistemic consequences.
00:23:32
Speaker
So, ah motivated by epistemology, we get into semantics and ontology. And when the ontology becomes too complicated in a medieval ah via antiqua, that is pre-Archemist conceptualism,
00:23:49
Speaker
yeah then Then we have the motivation for a much reduced ontology in Okken, redefining the semantic triangle, which then will have further ah far-reaching consequences in epistemology. because It is Alchemist nominalism, that is my claim at any rate, that opens up first in history the conceptual possibility of demon skepticism, which we know as such from Descartes.
00:24:22
Speaker
So modernity modern philosophy started not really with Descartes, but already with Alchemist. that's yeah That is fascinating. Yeah, yeah. You're- youre you're No wonder, by the way, that the nominist school came to be called the Via Moderna, as opposed to the earlier school of thought, the Via Antique. Got a sense now of the three options here, of the kind of platonic realist position, you might say, and then the sort of conceptualist position that you might associate with. Aristotle, position yeah all the way to Demoscotus, yes.
00:24:59
Speaker
And even further. so um The story did not end with SCOTUS, but then there was the altercation between the VA, pretty much like um the altercation between continental and analytic philosophy, and American philosophy department until very lately, very recently. Let's let's talk a little about Boethius. So,
00:25:23
Speaker
ah My understanding is that he gave a really influential and interpretation of Plato and universals. and But perhaps before getting into that, and perhaps before getting into um detail of Boises' argument, I would not want to skip an important ah previous figure, namely Augustine and his concept of divine ideas, that is um ah because that is going to be, the as it were, the resting place of ah platonic ideas, namely than the divine mind ah the ideas of the divine mind from Augustine onward um throughout the medieval period. And why is it important? that they are in the divine mind, so that they have this sort of mental existence. Because that is how um ah Plato's um naive theory can be overcome, as it were. The inconsistency of Plato's naive theory can be overcome by Aristotelian abstractionism. So,
00:26:35
Speaker
um and Think of a triangle in the Euclidean demonstration about the three internal angles of a triangle. You have just any triangle whatsoever.
00:26:54
Speaker
um You extend the base covering two vertices and you draw a parallel across the third vertex. and hu but You can actually ah read off the ah and diagram the conclusion that the internal angles should a equal two right angles, that is 180 degrees. Fine.
00:27:20
Speaker
What is that um demonstration about? No matter what kind of triangle you can draw or even conceive of,
00:27:33
Speaker
it would have to be such that either at least one pair um of its sides, that is, at least two sides of it are equal or no sides of it are equal.
00:27:46
Speaker
In the first, former case, it's an isosceles and in the latter case, it's a scalene triangle. right um um lumping equilateral triangles together with isosceles triangles. So all triangles, given that it is a triangle, that it has three sides, and of the three sides, at least one pair ah of sides is equal, or no sides are equal,
00:28:13
Speaker
um ah A triangle as such has to have this ah ah disjunctive property that it is either isosceles or scalene. You cannot think of triangle a triangle and that um is not such, that it is either isosceles or scalene. However, the um platonic form of all triangles cannot be isosceles because then it would be the exemplar only of isosceles triangles, right?
00:28:49
Speaker
And it cannot be scalene triangle because then it would be the exemplar only of scalene triangles. But it is a triangle, so it has to
Reconciling Platonic Forms with Divine Ideas
00:28:59
Speaker
be. um it's sort of alien But it ah cannot be isosceles and it cannot be scalene.
00:29:05
Speaker
It's a contradiction. right um ah mi ah This idea of a triangle, this universal entity, this universal triangle, would have to be an inconsistent object, much like round square.
00:29:23
Speaker
It cannot exist. nothing be Nothing can be a universal triangle that is either isosceles or scalene and neither isosceles nor scalene.
00:29:35
Speaker
If there's going to be this ideal perfect triangle, well, it has to be a triangle. But every triangle, either no sides are equal or at least two sides are equal. that's And so it looks like this triangle,
00:29:51
Speaker
You know, ideal triangle will either have to be isosceles, at least two try two sides equal, or scalene, no sides equal. But if it's scalene, like you said, then it won't be the model.
00:30:03
Speaker
Of all triangles. Of all triangles. It'll only be the model of scalene. And if it's isosceles, then it won't be the model of the scalene. So it looks like it needs to be both scalene and isosceles, which is impossible. So like you said, it's an inconsistent object. It's a... So it cannot be.
00:30:21
Speaker
that That is um ah what I take to be um definitive ah refutation of naive Platonism that is ah yeah conceiving of ah these universal objects as existing entities existing in their universality that would have to have all these disjunctive properties and cannot have any of the disjunct of these disjunctive properties.
00:30:53
Speaker
And ah you can um um run this argument through just any sort of object. So if you are talking about humans, and the idea of humans, um the form of humans, um being a human would have to have some height, right?
00:31:15
Speaker
But all humans are either, let's say, ah less than or equal to or greater or ah taller than, say, five feet, right?
00:31:30
Speaker
But then it it would also have to be either shorter than, equal to, or taller than five feet. But it cannot be either because it, or none of these, it cannot be any of these because, you know,
00:31:46
Speaker
it is ah it cannot be less than ah five feet, it cannot be equal five feet, cannot be taller than five feet. And so, again, um just ah any of these um a disjunctive properties that would have to belong to any physical entity of any kind, right, would have to belong to the form itself, if it is of the same kind, right?
00:32:17
Speaker
And yet none of the disjuncts could be a feature of the ideal entity. So it cannot exist as such. that is That is the problem there. On the other hand, what the hell are we talking about? And and what are we and thinking about when when we are doing the Euclidean demonstration about the internal angles of a triangle?
00:32:43
Speaker
What we have in mind is a triangle as such, um and we think of it as it would have to be either isosceles or scalene, but we are not thinking of it as isosceles, and we are not thinking of it as scalene.
00:33:03
Speaker
right And there is no inconsistency in that. So we are abstracting from its peculiarities that would belong to this or that kind of triangle.
00:33:14
Speaker
Right? We are just thinking of it in terms of our concept of triangles as such, and understand that that concept implies that it would have to be either isosilis or scalene.
00:33:29
Speaker
But we are not considering the implication ah either of the disjunct, of this disjunctive implication. So we ah separate in mind, in thought, that cannot be separated in reality.
00:33:45
Speaker
Because any real triangle that you draw would have to be either isosceles or scalene triangle. But you can't think of either of these without thinking that it is isosceles and without thinking that it's scalene.
00:34:00
Speaker
Yeah, and this is this is kind of like, i don't know, like the magic of the human mind here is that, like you said, we are able to conceive of a triangle separated from it being scalene or it being isosceles. Exactly.
00:34:17
Speaker
Even though in reality, no triangle could ah pass on both scalene and isosceles. No, it has to it has to opt for one or the other. Either none of its sides are equal or at least two of them are equal.
00:34:33
Speaker
What you see on the diagram drawn for illustrating the demonstration, it is either an isosceles triangle or a scalene triangle, but you're not looking at it as isosceles or as scalene.
00:34:50
Speaker
We are looking at it as a triangle, no matter what. which kind it is. the The point of the ah of thinking the demonstration through only in terms of the concept of a triangle and not in terms of the concept of an isosceles triangle or in terms of a concept of a scalene triangle.
00:35:15
Speaker
Even if you can only draw one or the other kind of triangle, you can think of either kind, only in terms of the concept of triangle, without thinking of it as isosceles, or without thinking of it as scaly.
Abstraction and Divine Ideas in Philosophy
00:35:31
Speaker
That is abstraction. Good. Okay. So, yeah, obviously, we're now getting into, yeah, this kind of Aristotelian territory. Yes. And this is um precisely um the idea, even if august Augustine never really goes into But it was um already present in a neoplatonic thought by his time.
00:35:54
Speaker
is That um um in the mind, ah we can separate ah things that cannot be separated in reality. and That is how God can of have these universal exemplars for his creation in his mind without any inconsistency involved about these alleged universal entities that Plato started out with.
00:36:23
Speaker
Yeah. So just yeahre regarding the divine ideas tradition, I mean, it's sort of on the face of it's a little bit tricky to understand because like on the one hand, it seems like, okay, these medieval thinkers are heavily Aristotelian. They're going in for a more conceptualist approach.
00:36:38
Speaker
framework, potentially. And yet you also have the divine Aedius tradition, which looks like a more platonic strand. um Do you have anything to say about that? Like just helping us understand how those are consistent, how it's not...
00:36:57
Speaker
So if we can um um agree on that simple claim that um universals as um objects of the mind are not inconsistent,
00:37:15
Speaker
um in the way Plato's original universal entities were inconsistent objects, right? um Then placing universals in the mind avoids this original inconsistency in Plato's naive theory.
00:37:36
Speaker
And apparently it doesn't matter much, at least from the point of view of this problem alone, whether we are considering a human mind a human mind. Or gods. Yes. um But ah as you will see, if we can go on with this later, And that will be also somewhat problematic concerning divine ah knowledge, divine omniscience,
00:38:08
Speaker
whether ah these are really um sort of abstract objects. Obviously, they are not resulting from abstraction. But ah insofar as they are objects of a mind, um they are not inconsistent in the way Plato's real um exemplars would have to be.
00:38:32
Speaker
Okay. Now, ah but... um Obviously, divine ideas are not the same kind of ideas as our universal concepts.
00:38:47
Speaker
and God ah is um um omniscient creator of all reality.
00:39:05
Speaker
And he has knowledge, therefore, about everything, even before he um brought them into existence some by his act of creation.
00:39:17
Speaker
What is that knowledge like? How can he know about these different objects that he is about to create from eternity, right?
00:39:28
Speaker
um And just a ah very sketchy hint of the idea is that God, in his omniscience, is considering himself as the worthiest object of cognition, obviously, and in all possible ways in which um this object can be considered. In fact, he can also conceive of himself in all the possible ways in which his perfection ah can be shared by um limited ah ah perfections, creatures of limited natures, that can only that can only share some of the features of this intensive infinity of divine perfection.
00:40:20
Speaker
And it is these ah conceptions of these finite nature finite natures, um sharing in divine perfection in their finite modes, which are the creative ideas of God.
00:40:37
Speaker
and serving as the exemplars of creation. So you're also hinting there at know Aquinas' solution to a sort of problem that comes up with ah the divine ideas framework or an apparent problem, which is that, you know, how could there be this plurality of ideas in the divine mind when the, when, when God is simple, utterly one, without parts. And so part of the solution, or the solution perhaps to that in Aquinas as well, really
00:41:13
Speaker
what God is understanding is he's understanding all the ways, as you described, as you said, all the ways in which he can be imitated by finite entities. and And so, and so the, and so that theory also kind of connects to this other kind of yeah major philosophical issue. Yeah, because the solution is simply that the,
00:41:37
Speaker
ah all different ways of conceiving of an object would not ah multiply the object of thought itself, right? So um you can think of Donald Trump as the president.
00:41:51
Speaker
You can think of Donald Trump as the husband of Melania. um You are thinking of one and the same... ah object of thought um in different ways under different concepts. So the multiplication of the concepts or ideas does not multiply the object itself.
00:42:10
Speaker
Hence, the plurality of divine ideas does not contradict the simplicity of the divine essence itself. Beautiful. what What do you think about turning to, um, so we, yeah, we've discussed like this problem of the, uh, platonic universal being inconsistent, you know, so with respect to the triangle, it seems like it's going to have to be both scaling and isosceles, which is impossible. Uh, what do you think about maybe looking at Boethius's, uh, specific argument and maybe I'll just try to like throw it out really quick. It's has something to do with, um,
00:42:48
Speaker
His thought is like, you know, each particular entity, which is supposed to be participating in this platonic universal, um each particular entity has a distinct act of being.
00:43:00
Speaker
But if the platonic universal is sort of constituting the substance of each It seems like we're going to be led into a situation where instead of many distinct acts of being, we just collapse it down into one and we lose that distinction of acts of being among the numerous particulars. So anyway, can you kind of just talk a little bit about that? You youve very neatly laid out the argument, actually. And this is precisely the a reason why Don Scutus later on. ending
00:43:37
Speaker
late 13th century, would have to ah a talk about universals as having a less than numerical unity.
00:43:48
Speaker
um That is, there is ah one universal, let's say, one universal humanity in all of us humans making us individual human beings.
00:44:00
Speaker
But um we cannot say ah that um and that um unity of human nature amounts the same unity, same kind of unity, as you have or I have or any other individual human has.
00:44:17
Speaker
So um it is um a sort of solution of a paradox by type theory. It's ah pretty much like ah I'm putting and putting it in modern terms. That is ah distinguishing entities of different types um with different kinds of um um conditions for individuation and therefore unity or disunity.
00:44:49
Speaker
Right? That's fascinating. I didn't realize. Okay. So it's like, you know, SCOTUS as a realist, he wants He wants to have real universals working in the causal architecture of this empirical reality. So he would not place those, ah his universals, in a platonic heaven of ideas, or he is not talking about divine ideas.
00:45:15
Speaker
His really existing universals would somehow run across all the singulars of um the same kind. and it is the universal that constitutes their kind. And in fact, it is ah through the universal and that the causality of individuals is subject to universal laws because they all act indifferently insofar as they are instances of the same kind.
00:45:45
Speaker
Okay, so this is just an anticipation of the complications that is coming out from this so sort of... a realistic position of universals, which Boethius is trying to and avoid. He would say that, oh, if we um ah posit ah real universals, which constitute simultaneously the essences of all the individuals, then the individuals ah could not independently come into being and cease to be, because they would essentially have to have the same act of being.
00:46:23
Speaker
the same existence. And it's it's a little bit similar, right? You also review in your article, ah this is coming many years later, but Abelard kind of reminds me of an argument he makes where he seems to be saying something like, yeah, you know, if if there's going to be this a universal outside the mind, which constitutes the substance of numerous particulars, well, then we're actually going to have one existence, one being But then this one being ends up having inconsistent properties. It's both tall and in virtue of Shaq and then short in virtue of my son. And so then. yeah you you get an inconsistent being in that way. And so that that argument seems somewhat similar. Yes.
00:47:15
Speaker
And in fact, um it is um getting repeated time and again in other authors as well. on ah um And also Abelard, with his theory of the status, right, of the things, he's also... ah ah just trying to pull off a balancing act between pure conceptualism and some sort of moderate realism, um ah talking about the a status of being human, or the status of being this or that kind, which he would not identify with any um particular entity. But he would also not say that it is just a pure concept of the mind.
00:48:07
Speaker
so ah It is, um again, um ah trying to avoid inconsistency by introducing something like type theory, that is, distinguishing entities of different kinds.
Views of Boethius, Duns Scotus, and Abelard on Universals
00:48:25
Speaker
Right? ah Of different different types, so different ontological types, theyre not just different species of the same kind. Yeah, I mean, do do you want to maybe... briefly talk about um and Abelard's theory of status now? or Because, yeah, it might be interesting to to to discuss that that approach.
00:48:47
Speaker
Although we would we'd also it would be nice also to to talk a little bit about Boethius' solution. i mean Well, the general solution is are pretty much the same for all of them. That is, um ah things so ah the features of things, of individuals. are separable in thought without being separable in reality.
00:49:08
Speaker
So that that is pretty much the idea of abstraction. um And so the universal ends up, it's not existing in reality as one thing shared by many.
00:49:22
Speaker
Yes. Instead, it's going to be, the universal is going to be existing in the intellect as like a kind of act of understanding. It's like, there's a type of understanding which sort of has a universal ah grouping function? Yes. So, and this is where things um are becoming more complicated because, um and and this is what leads us to that ah rather complicated semantic dry and diagram that you can find in the eighth section of the Universal's article.
00:50:00
Speaker
which ah summarizes pretty much the Antiqua Conception, especially as it is articulated by Aquinas.
00:50:13
Speaker
Yeah, and like you said, it can get complicated. and It's like we we're going from sense data to the common sense, to the cogitative power, to the phantasm, to the active intellect, to the intelligible species. We don't know exactly how Abelard would conceive of the details of getting to these status of things. and He ah definitely is um going for a conceptualist position, even if sometimes he's characterized as a nominalist. But the this wobbliness of the terminology, I'm afraid, that is ah ah basically
00:50:54
Speaker
all thinkers after Aristotle can be characterized as conceptualists, that is epistemically, the universals are universal concepts and universally existing um ah Platonic entities were pretty much abandoned by everybody throughout the course of history. Even if ah John of Salisbury in his Metalogicon still credits some people with um um positing ancestral universals. but um And they were not, um let's say, the dominating thinkers, especially in later medieval philosophy. ah um So after the 12th century, after the recovery of much of Aristotle's work, original work, because before that, all they could work with were Boethius and Boethius' translations of Aristotle's logical works, the categories and the periharmeneas, and also his translation and commentaries are on the Porphyria and Isogogi, the introduction Aristotle's categories. But as Aristotle's metaphysics got recovered,
00:52:19
Speaker
and that provided more andmo ammunition to the trend of Aristotelianism, which um eventually yielded this general commitment to regarding universals as primarily objects of thought.
00:52:43
Speaker
OK? ah The universals anterem, the universals before the things would be the divine ideas, the objects of divine thought.
00:52:57
Speaker
Universals in rebus would be um the individualized instances of these ah universal archetypes in the divine mind. And ah the universals post-trem would be the human concepts drawn from these instances of the universals conceived in their universality by the human mind.
00:53:31
Speaker
So this truly abstractive and abstracted universal existence ah is due to the abstractive activity of the intellect. And this is what provides universality to the objects of our singular cognitive acts. So that is a further issue. And, you know, i want to be sensitive to the time here, but maybe
00:54:01
Speaker
We could just briefly touch on a kind of interesting problem that Boethius deals with, it which is, OK, so if, you know, the universal is going to be in the mind, um it's if it's going to be a sort of universal act of understanding,
00:54:20
Speaker
um you know, it's going to be a universal act of understanding external things which are themselves particular. And so you seem to have this kind of mismatch where the act of understanding is universal, but what it understands is particular. And so he considers this objection that, well, um you know,
00:54:38
Speaker
Normally, when you have a mismatch between understanding and the object of understanding, that's falsehood. So what does this mean? Does it mean that all of our you know universal concepts are false? and yeah Again, the idea of what is separable in thought ah does not have to be separable in reality, or what cannot be separated in reality can still be separated.
00:55:06
Speaker
You bring up the example of... um The mode of being a representation can be different than the object of representation, but that doesn't mean it's false. But um there's this argument yeah um which comes, ah recurs time and again in Boethius Abelard abelar and ah John of Salisbury, that an intellect thinking the thing to be otherwise than it is, is false.
00:55:40
Speaker
But the intellect is thinking of a things universally, and they do not exist universally. So the universal ah thinking intellect must be false, right? The universal thinking intellect, thinking of singulars must be false, right? Because it's thinking of things to be otherwise than they are. but aren But when we are thinking of um ah singulars in terms of universal concepts, we are not thinking them to be this way or that way or that way.
Aquinas and the Immaterial Intellect
00:56:16
Speaker
But we are just thinking of them universally in a universal fashion, but we are not thinking them to be universally.
00:56:28
Speaker
Right. Because, I mean, if I think of a triangle, a specific triangle as a triangle, um just because I'm not including in my mind, you know, the fact that it's a scaling triangle or the fact that it's an isosceles triangle,
00:56:47
Speaker
ah that doesn't immediately mean I'm wrong to think of it as a triangle simply because I lay aside a particular feature of it. Obviously, if i if in my mind there's like a mismatch in the sense of me attributing to the triangle ah scaling the character of scaling when it's not scaling, obviously that type of mismatch where you attribute to the triangle a type of ah way of being which it doesn't have scalene versus not scalene, that type of mismatch falsehood.
00:57:23
Speaker
Yes. And that's a judgment. and and That is a simple idea. that um number eightus Especially in Latin makes ah this distinction ah ah very neatly.
00:57:36
Speaker
Distinguishing um between two possible readings of the scope of the adverb, aliter, that is otherwise, So an understanding, thinking of a thing otherwise than it is, is false.
00:57:52
Speaker
This can be understood in two ways. Otherwise, ah um ah covering the object, the thing. The thing, the intellect understanding the thing otherwise, to be otherwise than the thing is, would be false, right?
00:58:10
Speaker
But the thing, ah but ah if the, um sorry, if the adverb, the otherwise, governs the act of the intellect or modifies the act of the intellect.
00:58:22
Speaker
So the intellect thinking and the thing in a way that is different from the way in which the thing is, that doesn't have to be false. You know, we'll be sensitive to time here. And there's a lot in your article, of course, which we weren't able to touch on. ah Yeah, I don't know, just just to kind of wrap up, would you want to maybe tell us a little bit about what you're working on these days, what you're currently working on?
00:58:50
Speaker
Oh, what is um perhaps um most directly related to the subject of our conversation is the Aquinas' argument for the immateriality of the intellect from the universality of its objects.
00:59:08
Speaker
That is, some um Aquinas is arguing that um um any material cognitive power that we have, any sensitive power that we have, and any material representation that we can produce in these material cognitive powers, such as sight, hearing, e etc., um must be ah representing singularly.
00:59:38
Speaker
in a singular fashion. ah We cannot see universals, we cannot hear universals, etc. But we can think universals. And if it is true that um this implication holds, that as long as a representation, cognitive representation is material, it must be singular, then by Modus Tolens,
01:00:06
Speaker
If a cognitive representation is non-singular, then it must be non-material. And the intellect's representations are non-singular, therefore the intellect must be um immaterial.
01:00:20
Speaker
Now, ah that is the ah gist of the argument, and of course ah the implication needs to be justified. that material cognitive representations must always be singular.
01:00:34
Speaker
Okay. This is something that I've been discussing several times already in the past couple of years. It started way back in even in the late 90s, early 2000s. In any case, so um and i'm I'm trying to simplify um the argument itself. And besides just ah simplifying, I'm also trying to universalize it, generalize it, so that we can apply its conclusions to artificial intelligence.
01:01:15
Speaker
And so ah the question is whether um even these large language models that seem to be behaving and responding so intelligently, etc., etc.,
01:01:30
Speaker
Do they really have um intelligence in the way we have? Can they really have intelligence in the way we do if they cannot have this awareness universals that we have in our intellectual representations, having our intellectual concepts?
01:01:53
Speaker
Because these these machines are necessarily material constructs. But then, what do they do? Do they have any idea of what they are doing? Or are they just like the guy in the Chinese room? Okay, so um ah these are pretty much the things that I'm currently involved in.
01:02:16
Speaker
Besides just writing a big monograph, um actually wrapping up a big monograph called After Form, Recovering the Lost Scholastic Aristotelian Idea of Form for Contemporary Use, and which I summarize
01:02:38
Speaker
most of the stuff that I've been involved in the past couple of decades. Oh, wow. Well, well that's that's fantastic. And yeah, so I definitely recommend to listeners, um obviously this stands for an encyclopedia article on the problem of universals, but also, yeah, your work kind of engaging with.
01:03:00
Speaker
Yeah, it is um easily available on academia.edu. Wonderful. Well, thanks so much, Julia, again for for coming on and sharing your insights into this fascinating topic. So thank you so much. You're welcome.
01:03:14
Speaker
Thank you. Again, i enjoyed the conversation.