Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Aristotle’s Argument Against Plato’s Form of the Good - with Michele Pecorari
44 Plays2 days ago
In this episode, I speak with Michele Pecorari about one of Aristotle’s arguments against Plato’s Form of the Good in Nicomachean Ethics 1.6. Aristotle notes that we call many different kinds of things good: God is good, as a substance; virtue is good, as a quality; the right amount is good, as a quantity; and the right time is good, as a time. We discuss why Aristotle thinks this creates a problem for Plato’s idea of a single Form of the Good.
The article discussed is Michele Pecorari’s “Goodness and Non-Univocity in Nicomachean Ethics 1.6,” published in Phronesis 71.1, pp. 25–51. The article is available here: https://brill.com/view/journals/phro/71/1/article-p25_2.xml
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Michaela Peccarari and Aristotle's Critique of Plato
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, welcome back to the Dinosaur Circle podcast. In this episode, I speak with philosopher Michaela Peccarari, who is completing his PhD at Oxford. We discuss Aristotle's attempt to refute Plato's idea of the form of the good. So as you, I'm sure you know, um in Plato's Republic, the form of the good good is presented as the highest object of knowledge. um It's the source of intelligibility, truth, and goodness, right? It is the principle by which good things are good.
00:00:32
Speaker
But now in the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle gives a number of arguments against Plato's idea of the form of
Non-Univocity Argument and Goodness
00:00:42
Speaker
the good. And in this episode, we focus on one argument in particular, which Pecorari, Michaela, he calls the calls this argument the non-univocity argument against the form of the good. Now, roughly speaking, the issue is something like this, okay? So if there's one single form of the good, you might think that good should be said in one common way. And Aristotle argues that goodness is actually applied across many different categories. We apply good to substance. For example,
00:01:15
Speaker
We say God is good. We apply it to quality. We say, uh, virtues are good. We apply it to quantity. We say the right amount is good.
00:01:26
Speaker
And we reply it also to, relation time and so on. Okay. And so the question is basically, you know, like this, this, this way in which good applies across many different categories, does it undermine Plato's theory?
Aristotle's Concept of Happiness and Virtue
00:01:41
Speaker
All right. And, uh, We begin the conversation just by talking about, you know, what's the general project of the Nicomachean Ethics? Trying to give an account of what is the human human good, what is best for human beings. And so we start with book one, and he talks about this thing which is desired for the sake of itself, not for the sake of something else.
00:02:07
Speaker
And then he moves quite quickly, identifies this with happiness, and more or less by the end of book one, he has, let's say, described um happiness as um a certain kind of activity, ah which is practiced according to virtue, perfect virtue. And so the rest of the book, well, the books of Deacon, Lacquer, Macan Ethics are concerned exactly with explaining what virtue is and and what the correspondent buys.
00:02:38
Speaker
is for each kind of virtue and then we get the really puzzling account of contemplation um and you know what is divine book 10 which maybe we don't have the time to get into but and this is just his way of trying to give an account of what the human good is so happiness this kind of activity of the soul um which is i guess proper to us as rational beings and And in in in this context, he has this quite brief and puzzling chapter in book one, which is the one I was dealing with in my paper on, as I was saying earlier, the universal goodness or the, as you were saying, the absolute
Universal vs. Human Goodness
00:03:22
Speaker
goodness. So let's say a kind of goodness, which is not especially related to certain kinds of things, which is not related to action in the way happiness is for us.
00:03:34
Speaker
And for him dealing with that kind of goodness means also dealing with one specific and important theory in that area, which is the the theory of the forms and especially that of the the form of the good in in Plato, which he doesn't doesn't really mention, but he's clearly to behind all of this Plato and his platonic mates. and And I guess you were saying earlier, right,
00:04:04
Speaker
speaking about and kind of kind of filling in the details of what I was saying about the form of the good in the Republic. So in the Republic, it's, you know, it does a lot of work. It it explains being, intelligibility, goodness.
00:04:17
Speaker
um But it seems that in Aristotle, and this might be interesting, his critiques are restricted to goodness. So he's not interested in the form of the good as a cause of being, whatever that means for Plato, um or as a cause of intelligibility.
00:04:34
Speaker
I guess, is only interested in its being a cause of, ah of or or its being good. um Which is interesting, I think. um It seems to have a more restricted target than what one might have if they were the Republic.
00:04:52
Speaker
And so we find Aristotle turning specifically to the form of the good in in that sixth chapter of Book One, Yeah, I mean, we already kind of touched on this a little bit, but but maybe what what is the reason for moving from a consideration of a more restricted good, that you know the good of the human being, to moving toward this more universal form of goodness? Why would he shift in that way? well that's a really important question. Yeah.
00:05:29
Speaker
I mean, it does it does give a reason at the very start of the chapter. It kind of says that it's important to tackle this conception because some friends, you know, the friends have introduced the forms, um have made remarks about the form good, which seem relevant for this whole inquiry about human goodness.
00:05:52
Speaker
And... um Of course, it doesn't like it does agree that a good account of um or it seems to agree that a good account of absolute goodness is important.
00:06:04
Speaker
But it does also seem it does seem to think it does say that such an account is not what is required for, let's say, this the kind of inquiries is pursuing here.
Essential Goodness without Universal Forms
00:06:15
Speaker
Like it does repeat more than once that these matters. So human action, human happiness, These matters allow only for a certain amount of theoretical rigor.
00:06:30
Speaker
And it's quite clear that such a, let's say, heavy-duty metaphysical account of absolute goodness will certainly exceed that that level of rigor. So he seems to think that we have to account for absolute goodness in a way, but this is not the place to do it.
00:06:51
Speaker
um Of course, the problem is that we don't have really we don't have any other place. or We have some interesting passages here and there in the corpus, but we don't get an an exhaustive treatment of of absolute goodness in any other um passage. As I said, we have some interesting clues here and there.
00:07:14
Speaker
um But I guess the the the core idea is that we do not need such an account to understand what human goodness is and more importantly, in order to become happy.
00:07:26
Speaker
we We don't need such a level of of detail and depth. And that's really interesting, I think. especially Especially if you compare it with Plato, right? Plato in the Republic has this idea that, you know, in order to have proper knowledge, you have this longer road, right?
00:07:43
Speaker
Up to the form of the good. And he seems to think that it's really important to actually get there sometime at some point, both for like, for the city and like for other the people.
00:07:54
Speaker
um And is also just seems to disagree. No, like, you don't really need to like, get all the way to the form the good or to absolute goodness more generally, in order to understand and to some extent and practice happiness.
00:08:13
Speaker
Okay, yeah, that's that's really interesting. So it's like Aristotle is here you know looking for the highest human good. He's you know looking to understand happiness.
00:08:25
Speaker
And it might seem like Plato's form of the good is a sort of rival here. you know So that thought might be, hey, to understand the human good, maybe we need to first understand goodness itself.
00:08:38
Speaker
And so so Aristotle, it seems like he's pausing and saying, okay, you know, do we need the universal good? Do we need the form of the good um to do ethics in ah in a sense? And his answer, like you were saying, is is basically no. um A full theory of of absolute good, it might be important, um but it's not ah required for the kind of practical inquiry he's giving.
Details of Non-Univocity Argument
00:09:08
Speaker
Okay. And, um and, Yeah, and I don't think we need to necessarily go over again the point about the the distinction, the key distinction between absolute goodness versus human goodness.
00:09:23
Speaker
But, you know, it is important that, yeah, Aristotle doesn't think those are the same inquiry in that, you know, which which makes sense. Okay. um All right, so now um let's kind of,
00:09:35
Speaker
you know zero in a little bit more on the focus of in your work. So basically Aristotle, he gives a few arguments against the form of the good in the Nicomachean Ethics.
00:09:47
Speaker
um, in Christopher Shields work, um, I'm forgetting the name of his book. Is it Fractured Goodness? Okay. Yeah. Fractured Goodness. Um, he, I think he counts like seven total arguments, um, against the form of the good appearing in, chapter six of book one alone. Okay. Now your, your paper is focusing on just one of them.
00:10:09
Speaker
And, um, And you call it the non-univosity argument against the form of the good. So, yeah, do you want to just kind of introduce us to this argument? What is the non-univosity argument against the form of the good?
00:10:23
Speaker
Well, I guess non-univosity, so I guess homonymity is the the crucial, ah I suppose, crucial tool to attack Plato here.
00:10:39
Speaker
And idea is the following. So I guess you could think it's a kind of modus tolden. So the idea is that if we have a form, then this form, a form of a predicate, so good must be predicated univocally of good things.
00:10:57
Speaker
So not not like, for instance, ah sort of an example I use is sharp when predicated of a blade or or a voice. That's a case of anonymity. So we don't want that.
00:11:10
Speaker
and And then Aristotle ties this connosion of univocity to the categories, which yeah are are peculiarly Aristotelian. So if something is univocal, if a predicate is predicated univocally, then it's predicated in one category. So it's predicated of beings which belong to one of the ah greatest genera of Aristotelian metaphysics.
00:11:34
Speaker
And what he tries to show is that since good is not predicated in a single category then it's not any vocal and since it's not mini vocal then there cannot be a single form of the good and this is just the argument in a nutshell um and in order to show that good is not predicated vocally or rather is not predicated in one single category as it should in order to be the vocal um aristotle mentioned some examples so he mentions god um the virtues the kairos which is a really hard word to translate uh the divine moment and
00:12:21
Speaker
And before introducing such exact examples, has this really puzzling claim that ah goodness is predicated in as many ways is a host as being.
00:12:33
Speaker
So in all the categories, all the ten categories of human. And that's the way he argues for, let's say, his modus tolerance.
Challenges to Aristotle's Argument
00:12:42
Speaker
So argues for non-unimosity and therefore against the existence of a single form.
00:12:49
Speaker
Yeah, good. So, um yeah, that's really helpful and clear. So, like... Yeah, so just to kind of echo some of the things you're saying for the listener, like, um yeah, like what's the basic structure of this argument? Something like, you know, if there there if there really is a single form of the good, like Plato claims, then good must be predicated univocally of good things.
00:13:11
Speaker
um I don't know, roughly, what does that mean? Like something like all good things would be good according to like one common account or something like that.
00:13:21
Speaker
And then he said, but wait, you know, like you said, this is the most modus tollens, know, good is not predicated univocally. So therefore, there is no single form of the good. Now, when it comes to that claim, good is not predicated univocally. How does he does he reach that idea as well? Good is said across the category. So you have substances that are good.
00:13:44
Speaker
or of which we predicate goodness. You have qualities of which we predicate goodness. We have quantities, we have relations, time, place, et cetera. And those are all like, ah yeah, like different categories in Aristotle's metaphysics. And he's saying, hey, um you know, we say things are good across these.
00:14:05
Speaker
So, so yeah, so like it's really, so yeah, Yeah, I mean, I guess like if we had to put it in a kind of slogan, I guess we could say the way the good ah
00:14:23
Speaker
works across categories, the cross-categoriality of the good, this undermines Plato's theory of the good. That's the basic thought is that in virtue of the good applying across categories,
00:14:37
Speaker
um Plato's theory of the good is undermined. And, um,
00:14:44
Speaker
you know, yeah So like just the, you have mentioned like, like you were saying some the examples. So like, um, one category would be substance and, you know, Aristotle in a sort of elliptical way, but like he kind of says, you know, the God is, is predicated as good and God's a substance. Okay. So that would be one category where the good is predicated.
00:15:08
Speaker
And then, um, to take another one, um The virtues are, we also predicate good of virtues or virtue, and but virtue is a quality. So there we're already across categories. We already have two, it could be enough technically.
00:15:25
Speaker
Yeah, right, right exactly. yeah Because the idea is any cross-categoryality would be enough to undermine. And so so anyway, okay, yeah. So that's that seems to be um the argument at a high level. um Do you have any comments at this point?
00:15:42
Speaker
Well, I guess, and I'm sure we'll like go back to it. Um, I guess the problem about his arguments is that of course it's a monist like it works, but then he doesn't really argue for the key premise. He premise that, um, there are goods in different categories, right? It's just seems to take that as a given. It is quite b blunt when stating the premise.
00:16:05
Speaker
So I guess I think to keep an eye on as we discussed the argument and how it should be interpreted is that depending on the interpretation I give, um, of that premise, then is, I guess, the electrical effectiveness changes.
00:16:22
Speaker
And, and, um, And it's not a given to me that will end up with an argument, which it's totally effective with a Platonist. So don't, the premises of which could be accepted by someone who's a, who's a Platonist.
00:16:37
Speaker
Uh, but maybe we just can discuss this later, but I think that's the key problem of the argument. We just get a list of examples, a claim. So goodness is as but predicating as, as many ways of being, that's it.
00:16:52
Speaker
Right. So cool. Um, right. Yeah, I mean, one one thing you bring up in your work is how, in terms of like the dialectical effectiveness, in other words, like, is this really going to be an argument that a Platonist will be disturbed by? i guess is one way of thinking about it. And, you know, one issue you bring up is like, well, is ah is a Platonist going to really agree with these different categories? Like, is that the way that they think about the furniture of the world, so to speak, are they gonna divide things up and according to these categories? So it's like, that's a little bit tricky. It's like, it would be nice if, you know, really thorough argument, I guess, would be like one where he first showed why the Platonist needs to accept that there are already these different categories. Like, for example, that would raise the dialectical effectiveness of the argument. But anyway, yeah, we'll we'll kind of get more into that. um
00:17:46
Speaker
But yeah, so like, let's just maybe highlight two really important claims in this argument. So the first, and again, this is based on your work, which is super clear and helpful. So first there's this claim about univocity where look, if there was a form of the good, the good would be univocal. So that's a claim about like, yeah, like Plato's theory would, require if it were true, it would require that the good be univocal.
00:18:16
Speaker
And that's not really the concentration of your your paper. I don't know, we could we could maybe like touch on like the rationale for that. But I mean, it kind of seems plausible when you when you think about it a little bit.
00:18:27
Speaker
um At any rate, okay. But the second key claim in the argument is the connection between univocity and categoriality. So the idea being that like, hey, if the good were univocal, it would only be predicated in a single category.
00:18:46
Speaker
And it's that claim, the idea that if the good were univocal, it would only be predicated in a single category. That claim is actually um puzzling, maybe implausible on its face, I suppose is one way of putting it. i mean, you really do a great job of explaining this. So um yeah, maybe maybe we could go into yeah the second claim. Okay, so...
00:19:16
Speaker
if good If the good were univocal, it would be predicated in only a single category. Why might that claim be ah initially implausible? like Do you want to touch on that? Because basically you bring up big examples like related to like white and visible. Anyway, so.
00:19:36
Speaker
Well, of course, like this claim is important because depending on the way we interpret it, we could get some information how Aristotle conceives of cross-category predication, right? it It seems to take this kind of predication across the categories, whatever it it amounts to, as a sufficient condition for non-university. So it's quite important, right?
00:19:57
Speaker
And um I guess what you're referring to, you were just referring to now, is the idea that we can cannot just take predication straightforwardly as being true of.
00:20:12
Speaker
We cannot take these examples to simply be things of which um
00:20:20
Speaker
the predicate good is true. And the worry is exactly connected to what I was saying right now, because if we want... that kind of That principle would give us a more general principle on cross-categorial predication, which might be too strong.
00:20:37
Speaker
right because then it would be the case that for aristotle if a predicate is true simply true of two different two or so two items in different categories then that that uh predicate will not be univocal and um and you mentioned so one example which i which i use which is why so maybe that's quite that's that's useful to think about this problem right uh for instance white is um is true of let's say of uh substances like like calias right and um is not exactly and but we can also say that you know it's through of the quality certain quality in kyle like his his power we could say
00:21:33
Speaker
and Kallus is a substance. is Pallus is a quality. Is then why it's non-evocal? It doesn't seem to be akin to sharp when predicated of a blade and the and and and a voice. it It seems quite different.
00:21:52
Speaker
And so it is that in order to make sense of this principle, we need a more subtle notion of predication and i guess that's what the all the available readings of the argument more or less try to come up with a more nuanced version the notion of predication which kind of restricts the set of predications which are sufficient on their own for non-university so that's the main worry i guess when it comes to
00:22:23
Speaker
I guess Aristotelian scholarship in its own right. So what can we extract from these arguments when it comes to Aristotle's thoughts and commitments when it it comes to predication?
00:22:37
Speaker
Yeah, perfect. So, yeah, maybe let's...
Types of Predication and Implications
00:22:40
Speaker
I was thinking maybe we could we could zoom out and like talk a little bit about univocity versus equivocity and stuff for a second, just for the... Because we haven't maybe...
00:22:52
Speaker
discussed that yet, but let me just, yeah, like echo what you're saying about like, like like for example, the white example. Okay, so um so basically it's like, all right, callus, that would be a substance person. Okay, he you know, he's you would count as a substance. Okay, and we want might want to say, or kind of works with visible. So we might want to say callus is visible.
00:23:22
Speaker
Okay, that's, well, actually that is true. We we we predicate of Cali studies visible and that would be a true predication. Okay, now wanna also say a white patch, which is a quality, so a different category, is visible too. So a white patch is visible, that's another true predication. All right, now, if if the principle was correct that ah predicating across categories makes it non-univocal,
00:23:51
Speaker
It seems like therefore we would we would have evidence or we would have had like sufficient evidence, like you're saying, the sufficiency is really important. It seems like we have sufficient evidence that um visible is therefore non-univocal, but it's like, hold up, a white patch is visible, callius is visible. It seems like it just means the same thing, which is that you can see them.
00:24:13
Speaker
is able you it's It's possible to be seen. Callius can be seen, a white patch can be seen. so Point being is that that seems to be a really good example where it's like, and same thing with whiteness, where it's like, hey, we have cross-categorial predication, but we don't have obvious, at least not obviously, we don't have non-univosity.
00:24:38
Speaker
um so So anyway, what that leaves us with is like, hmm, i don't know, I guess, ah I mean, yeah, I guess one way of putting is it leaves us with it's like we need to try to figure out what exactly Aristotle is thinking of when he when he's thinking of like the good being predicated across categories. Would you agree like that's kind of like the next?
00:25:03
Speaker
That's what it pushes us toward. but Totally. I mean, if you just take visible, would you say maybe the best example of it? um Like, of course, if you if you look at what Aristotle says about visible and visibility, he does seem to think that um things are visible, so both Kalyas and his whiteness. ah And so, in a way, the predicate is true of both of them, but then it's true of them in different ways. He does say that the color is what is visible per se, cat without thought whereas Kalyas is visible accidentally.
00:25:42
Speaker
just because he happens to have the color. So, and, uh, and I, so this, for example, shows that Aristotelian predication is a bit more complicated than this really blunt notion of predication as truth allows us to, to say.
00:25:58
Speaker
And so, yes, going forward, we should look for more nuanced interpretation of what, of this kind of predication.
00:26:13
Speaker
Good. Yeah. Maybe I just wanted to um just back up really quick for the listener. I was just thinking maybe really quick, we should say a word on like univocity, just like generally speaking, um you know, like, okay. So yeah, like an example of univocity is like, okay, we say of a horse that it's an animal. We say of a dog that it's an animal. We say of a human that it's an animal. And in those cases, it seems like we basically mean the same thing with animal. Now, all of those are substances, but the point is like that would be a kind of example where like, okay, it looks pretty looks like we pretty clearly have univocity.
00:26:54
Speaker
ah And then on the contrast, when we have the the kind of contrast, the most strong contrast of univocity would be like equivocity. or where terms or or words are like used anonymously. So ah you've already given examples, but like, you know, ah you you brought up sharpness. So like sharp, when we say it of a knife versus when we say it of a mind, like very clearly were're we're not saying in the same way, you know? um
00:27:25
Speaker
So that seems to be like same word, different meanings. So that would be like, um an example of equivocity. And I don't know if we want to bring up analogy right now, but like, yeah, like, when you say, yeah, sorry. sorry and No, no, you go. Yeah.
00:27:45
Speaker
I mean, so, um I mean, the account you gave of nevosity and, and, and, if you watch it, you are really clear.
00:27:55
Speaker
The basic idea seems to be that the case of non-univocal predicates, what it means for a thing to be that predicate is different, right? Both the sharp mind and the sharp blade.
00:28:07
Speaker
um And this is not the case in in when it comes to univocal predication. And I guess if we wanted to look like know more about that, we should look at the categories, the stuff that even though it's a bit different, the, the, he has this idea of like homonyms and synonyms, which it takes to be beings, not predicates, but I think conceptually it's kind of the same, same, same path.
00:28:35
Speaker
It's going down. Um, And of course, a big problem about Aristotle was that for him, predication doesn't stop there. Like we have an in-between, like a tertium, as it were. So you have predicates, which are not strictly speaking univocal, but which still allow some kind of unity.
00:28:56
Speaker
um A unity which thought like sets them apart from... let's say mainly non-univocal predicates like sharp and the the i guess the most important case of this uh is being right arisopoul says you know things do not form a single genus being is not a genus in the same way as animal is just think things are in really different ways uh but again there seems to be a certain unity, you know what what usually is deemed in the scholarship, ah um focal unity, line which is substance, and therefore being is not non-univocal, is not biblical.
00:29:41
Speaker
and And this is especially relevant because Aristotle then, at the end of this chapter in Latinx and Ethics, has some worries about allowing goodness to nonetheless be um have some kind of unity.
00:29:55
Speaker
right He has attacked the form of the good. um He thinks conclusively. And it does need to come up with a way of ah at least allowing for some kind of maybe looser unity among good things. We don't want good to be non-univocal. That would be a disaster, even for Aristotle.
00:30:15
Speaker
and And for instance, one example it brings up is that but one solution is that of analogy, right? So here's this example of the sun. And wait, let me actually check it.
00:30:28
Speaker
The sun, just like Plato, which that's an interesting, interesting coincidence, maybe more than a coincidence. Right. Yeah,
00:30:40
Speaker
yeah it says, yeah. ah Actually, no, I was thinking about the sun. It's a bit different. So sight and body, intellect and soul. So that's one possible way by which you could account for unity. And it's an analogy. So what is good for a thing is... I guess it's thinking of a proportion, for instance. But we don't really need to get into the details, especially as Aristotle doesn't. He doesn't seem to be particularly convinced of that.
00:31:11
Speaker
And he doesn't, at the same time, seem... He doesn't seem, the same time, to have a focal unity solution, for goodness, just like being... um These are possible ways for him to account for unity ways, which, as I was saying, are kind of in between university, non-university as a middle ground, but he's not really committed to any of those by the end this chapter, at least not explicitly.
00:31:38
Speaker
Um, right. Yeah. It's like, we're really focusing. here on the his attempt to refute the idea that the word good is applying univocally. Now, if it doesn't apply univocally, if that's false, you know the question is, well, how is it applying? And you know so there's these other options on the table, but we're not necessarily going to be exploring those other two possibilities between equivocity and an analogy. But yeah, it seems like
00:32:12
Speaker
it seems plausible that those are the three like possibilities, you know, either the word good is going to apply univocally or it's going to apply in a more ah equivocal way, or it's going to apply in an analogical way, analogical way, you know, yeah one that people love bringing up, um you know, health, like yes when you say the body is healthy, ah when you say food is healthy, yeah, they're sort of like united in some sense, like you were saying, it's a kind of,
00:32:42
Speaker
there's a type of unity there, but it's little looser than university, like you said, because it's like, yeah, the body is healthy by having health, whereas the food is healthy by producing health. So it's so it's a little bit different than just strictly having health. So anyway, there's a kind of unity across those two, but um but but it's ah it's a looser type of unity, which you might call analogical, something like that. Anyway, but yeah, we're not really here to kind of focus today is not really to to to explore an alternative account, more is just, you know, his attempt to refute the the platonic account, which he thinks, you know, implies that the good is univocal.
00:33:27
Speaker
Maybe just one thing on this since it's relevant to our argument. yeah So one possible way of accounting for the unity, this losing unity of goodness is, as you said, vocal unity, right?
00:33:39
Speaker
What you were saying. And in our argument, it does say that goodness goodness is predicated in as many ways as being. So it does seem to draw a connection, comparison between goodness and being.
00:33:52
Speaker
And some people have thought that this points to you know, this kind of solution. So this kind of focal unity, this kind of yeah symmetry between goodness and, and, and, and being and, and it's really interesting. And maybe we'll get into that later. But I think kind of goes towards ah more like medieval idea of like Tuscant d'Italia. So general properties,
00:34:22
Speaker
in where I think is good in so far as it is and you have a scale of being and and of goodness. So that's one family of interpretations. But we do get this reference to being in our argument and it might be relevant. That's a good point.
00:34:38
Speaker
Right. That's a good really good point. Yeah. OK, great. All right. So let's just. um All right. So, you know, going back a little bit, you know, we we we provided some examples where a predicate crosses categories, something like i don't know visible or white.
Scholarly Interpretations of Aristotle's Argument
00:34:53
Speaker
And it yet it doesn't seem to make the predicate non-univocal. All right. So that initially seems to spell like some trouble um for Aristotle's argument.
00:35:09
Speaker
And because it seems like Aristotle needs something like a principle where cross-categorial predication is sufficient or enough to undermine univocity.
00:35:23
Speaker
Now, turning to the next step here, which is that basically in your in your work, you consider different interpretations of this principle that cross-categorial predication is enough to undermine univocity. You consider different interpretations of it, ah three of them, and then you kind of offer your own interpretation of the principle. Okay, and so maybe what we should you know try to do here is maybe kind of um look at these different approaches and then you know look at your approach.
00:35:59
Speaker
So the three um existing interpretations that you disagree with are first, the strong predicational approach, second, the non-predicational approach, and then third, the criteria, criteriological approach.
00:36:15
Speaker
And so, um Anyway, so far, do you feel like I'm setting things up right? Is there any, does this sound good so far? Okay, cool. Okay. So, yeah. So, so first we can talk about, yeah, the the strong predicational approach of, ah I think it's W.F.R. Hardy. um um And we, yeah, but so maybe we could just kind of work through these existing interpretations one at a time.
00:36:44
Speaker
And so, yeah, you want to kind of introduce us to Hardy's strong predicational approach. Well, I guess, isn't it? It my idea is that ah goodness is not simply a predicate of Aristotle's example. So as we were saying, God, the virtues,
00:37:02
Speaker
um what is useful and so on, but is an essential predicate of them. And this, goes exactly towards restricting the set of medications which are sufficient for non-nervosity.
00:37:16
Speaker
the idea would be... And of of course, I think an important thing should be said is that when we speak about he essence here, and I suppose, of course, we mean specifically what is captured by definition, and more specifically a a definition by genus and differential.
00:37:35
Speaker
So what is essential is what belongs in the definition of something, and... So it's kind of a stick more realistic notion of what, I guess, usually is taken to be essential in contemporary philosophy. Well, there's a debate about that anyway.
00:37:50
Speaker
um And so the idea is that goodness then is part of the definition of these examples. Definition as stated by genius and differential. It can't be genius, a genius, of course, because if it were the genius, then we would have actually a genius of goodness. right They would all be good plus a certain differential just like human beings and dogs are animals with a certain differential and of course I sort of can't possibly be meaning that so the idea is that um that goodness is a differential of these different items so for instance God would be this ah ah certain substance which is good the virtues would be qualities which are good
00:38:39
Speaker
where quality is that as it were, the genus and goodness of differential is really post-grain, but I think it will do the job. And, um, this is a really interesting approach, of course, but maybe I should let you comment on it before diving to what I think about it.
00:38:59
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. i mean, yeah. So maybe we can first, um, yeah. Like echo some of things you're saying. So it's like, um,
00:39:11
Speaker
Well, maybe we, yeah, we could take three examples. Maybe we could think about the God, virtue, and maybe like the commensurate or but that would that would be like the moderate. Yeah. yeah So that would be quantity. say Okay. So God, substance, and we say of God that God is good.
00:39:29
Speaker
Virtue, quality. We say of virtue that it's good. Commensurate. We say of the commensurate that it's good. Okay. So now um the Hardy style reading,
00:39:42
Speaker
of what's going on there is that when Aristotle, when so when Aristotle is like, Hey, um good kind of travels across, lives across these categories. What he's saying is, for example, with respect to God, God belongs to the essence or definition ah sorry, good belongs to the essence or definition of God.
00:40:03
Speaker
So he's not just saying, Hey, you can apply good to God. yeah He's saying, no, no, no. God belongs to the essence or definition of God. Same for virtue.
00:40:14
Speaker
Good belongs to the essence or definition of virtue. Same for the opportune moment, the kairos. Good belongs to the essence or definition of the opportune moment.
00:40:25
Speaker
So the idea is when you have that kind of cross-continuously, categoriality, that undermines univocity. When good is being applied to the essence or definition of things across categories, that is going to um undermine univocity. And so anyway, that I guess like that's like the basic. Yes.
00:40:52
Speaker
And of course, the train of thought behind that. I mean, it's it's fairly easy to understand. So why you should this kind of essential dedication rule out the university? Well, you know, defining something is not simply finding some property, which are the predicates, which are the thing you're kind of against stating the essence kind of.
00:41:14
Speaker
um but What I mean by this is that in a definition between the definitions and the end the end, there's an identity relation. So if goodness is in the definience and the definience has, there's this kind of identity between the definience and definendum.
00:41:32
Speaker
And if goodness belongs to all these things, which are in different categories, then it's on it's hard to see how it could actually univocal because it would mean that it kind of,
00:41:44
Speaker
is somewhat identical to god which is a substance to but the virtues which are qualities to the commensers which are quantity and and so on so that i guess allows for a really effective explanation explanation issue of aristotle's train of thought yeah
00:42:05
Speaker
okay good yeah that's that's really helpful okay so Yeah. So the point being like, it's a little bit more plausible on its face, this kind of yes principle. Now,
00:42:17
Speaker
um maybe before we get into the problems or the potential problems with Hardy's strong predication, essential predication reading, almost wonder maybe we, maybe we could What do you think about maybe just introducing right now your
00:42:40
Speaker
your position just because it might be, i mean, because we're going to dig into it more later, but maybe it could be helpful for the yeah listeners just to real, to hear that, like your position is actually somewhat similar to Hardy's.
00:42:52
Speaker
um um And so um maybe I'll just throw out how I understand it really quick. And then, you know, we can just, just as an initial first pass on your, your interpretation. So it's like, all right. So when we say God is good or when,
00:43:07
Speaker
Aristotle is thinking about how goodness applies to God. For Hardy, he's thinking, okay, what Aristotle means is that good belongs to the essence or definition of God.
00:43:19
Speaker
God is essentially good. Whereas for you, you're thinking, well, what Aristotle is saying here, it's not quite that good belongs to the essence or definition of God. It's more like in virtue of God's essence.
00:43:36
Speaker
God is necessarily good, but it's not strictly speaking correct to say um goodness belongs to the essence of God.
00:43:47
Speaker
so So basically what we're doing right now is just kind of giving the initial first preview of of kind of your a way of thinking about what Aristotle is understanding in terms of um the good applying across categories.
Essential Predicate and Goodness
00:44:05
Speaker
That's a perfect summary. I guess the key insight behind my interpretation is um the distinction between, let's say, predication and essential predication. So, Hardy was exploiting essential predication, so definition definition and what belongs to the definition.
00:44:27
Speaker
But Aristotle allows for a different kind of predication which is still necessary and which nonetheless is not reducible to essential dedication and which he calls per se catautò, predication and he has different things to say about different kinds of predication but the idea is basically that per se predicates are a set of predicates which do not belong in the essence of this thing but follow from it
00:45:00
Speaker
His example, or the example which is usually made, is that of a triangle. I don't know the essence of a triangle for Aristotle, but he does say that, for instance, having the sum of the internal angles to be equal to 180 degrees, that's exactly something which is not in the essence of a triangle, but which follows from its essence.
00:45:25
Speaker
And my contention is that similarly, goodness, is not part of the essence of these examples, so God, the virtues, and so on, but follows from their essence. And this can help us explain why Aristotle takes it to be non-vocal.
00:45:39
Speaker
yeah Yeah, maybe we could just yeah quickly hit on that triangle point, because it's really helpful. So it's like, let's yeah like you said, I'm not sure what Aristotle's definition of triangle is, but let's ah let's just suppose for a second that it's like a three-sided plain figure, something like that.
00:45:57
Speaker
Okay, in that case, three-sided, i don't know three-sidedness maybe, belongs to the definition of triangle.
00:46:09
Speaker
Okay. So maybe, Hardy's right, and good belongs to the definition of God, and that's what Aristotle's thinking.
00:46:20
Speaker
Okay. In contrast to that, you can think about how, okay, let's suppose triangle, again, definition is three-sided plane figure. Well, it follows necessarily from being a three-sided plane figure that the triangles and interior angles add up to 180. Yes.
00:46:40
Speaker
But that interior angles adding up to 180, um that isn't part of the definition of a triangle that's just following from the definition and so that's kind of what you're thinking is that hey the good here when it when aerosol is talking about it like kind of applying across categories what he's thinking of is how um different items across different categories um good follows necessarily upon
00:47:17
Speaker
their essence, even if they're not, even if good is not part of the like basic definition of like God, for example. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah I guess one way to capture it would be to say it's not part of what it is to be virtue, a virtue to be good.
00:47:38
Speaker
That's not in its essence, but it does follow from what it is to be virtue that a virtue is is good. So that's the main, the main, the key intuition there, that this really subtle distinction between ah essence and what is essential to something, from what the something is in a loaded sense and what the kind of attribute it has in, the yeah, in virtue of that, of that essence.
00:48:05
Speaker
And, um, so yeah, that's what I, I exploit, I guess, to, to drive home my, my interpretation. Um, yeah. And those the difference might seem so subtle. is's like, how could you you know prefer one over the other? But so might we'll try to show like you have some really interesting arguments ah against the Hardy's kind of viewpoint and in favor of yours. So so hopefully we can we can touch on that. But maybe just, yeah, for the listener, we could...
00:48:37
Speaker
um We could you know quickly talk a little bit about um the other existing interpretation just so that they can kind of ah be aware of them. So another existing interpretation ah its Shields, and you call this kind of the non-predicational or attributive reading.
00:48:58
Speaker
Yeah, would you want to kind of um introduce us to that one a little bit? Oh, well, his interpretation was put forward by, well, in two or three works he had and it relies on a really um interesting insight by ah Peter Gage.
00:49:19
Speaker
Basically, Peter Gage thought that whenever we use the term good, even when we pretty predicate good or something, when I say, oh, this is this table is good, for instance, if I ever say that.
00:49:30
Speaker
um actually we're always using good as an attribute so what we're saying is that this table is a good piece of furniture so behind every use of good as a predicate there's actually um usage of good as an attribute and every kind of predication every predication of that kind should be understood as actually um an attribute of use so this table is good means this table is a good piece of furniture and basically chris shields try tries to apply the same strategy to aristotle's argument so his contention is that aristotle is driven by the same intuition and um that um then he has different proposals but i guess we we could take just one of his one one of the two um
00:50:28
Speaker
basically argues that um when predicating goods of Aristotle's list of examples, Aristotle's means to say that you can never say that each of them is good, will stop. You're always actually ah obliged to use good as an attribute. So what you're saying is actually that God is a good substance.
00:50:51
Speaker
The virtues are good qualities. The commensurate is a good quantity and so on. and this attributiveness of goodness therefore rules out any kind of predication and any kind of univocal, of univocity, because the basic idea idea seems to be that in order for a predicate to be univocal,
00:51:14
Speaker
um it should at least allow for some like predicative views and not simply an attributable one. So if good were univocal, he argues, then I mean, we should be able to predicate good, just like we predicate white.
00:51:34
Speaker
um And his view is that actually Aristotle is not. So behind Aristotle's at least ah list of examples, there's a, let's say, a series of paraphrases of these medications that were saying. So good God is a good substance, virtues are good qualities, and and so on.
00:51:56
Speaker
And of course, this gives Aristotle really interesting argument. and um But yeah, I'll let you comment on what he just said.
00:52:11
Speaker
Yeah, so just so maybe to be overly clear, but just for the sake of the deal, it's like... Yeah, it is quite difficult. ah Yeah, yeah, I'm imagining it might be it might be but difficult to track in audio form, right? So it's just like, okay, so whereas Hardy, when he... So God is good. Hardy's thinking Aristotle means that good belongs to the essence or definition of God.
00:52:34
Speaker
Shields is thinking... God is good. What Aristotle means is God is a good substance. Yes. Like you said, virtue is good. um Hardy's thinking good belongs to the essence or definition of virtue.
00:52:48
Speaker
Shields is thinking virtue is a good quality. And so, yeah, good in the Shields ah framework, it's always tied to ah kind or a category. So there's you don't have like this like yeah, freely floating predicate that's, that's, that shared across a bunch of stuff. It's really more like we have good substance. We have good quality.
00:53:18
Speaker
We have good dash time, you know, and so forth and so um that's kind of the idea like okay you know once you really like get into the rigorous like what we're doing here we realize oh there's no good across all these categories it's just good dash substance good dash quality good cash time and you anyway so that kind of that's that's supposed to kind of break university and like and like you kind of mentioned um you think you you know you you you find it to be like a kind of like philosophically elegant you know approach, but you're you're kind of worried about it, at least for textual reasons, if I remember there's some textual, but, but maybe, um but you know, we'll, we'll move on to another reading, Akrell's reading. So this is the criteria logical or kind of like grounds reading. um
00:54:11
Speaker
And so, and so he's, the idea here is like, um you know, correct me if i'm wrong, but it's kind of like, um It's hard to do it with God as you talk about in your paper, but with virtue, for example, and that's a true yeah ah with virtue, virtue is good.
00:54:31
Speaker
the idea is like what what aerosol has his sights on is the fact that A person is good because he is virtuous. So virtue functions as a ground, as ah a ground for goodness.
00:54:47
Speaker
The opportune moment is good. The idea is you know, an action is good because it happens to be at the right time. um Being at the right time functions as a good making process.
00:54:59
Speaker
like kind of feature so point is that it's functioning as a ground so anyway that's a kind of like grounds type uh approach i don't know yeah thoughts on that is that do you think that's like roughly accurate kind of i do yeah totally and i i would only add that that i mean our accru has a piece of evidence for that it comes from the topics and Aristotle there argues ah that ah good is not univocal precisely because when we use good, we attribute goodness, predicate goodness ah on the basis of different grounds.
00:55:41
Speaker
So we could say, Kallius is good. Well, why is it good? Well, it's virtues and and so on, as you were saying. And Of course, we might wonder about the philosophical soundness of this this assumption, but it is an assumption which Aristotle seems to make in one parallel passage. So that that gives some strength to his interpretation.
00:56:03
Speaker
And it does seem to point to this, an interesting connection between goodness and grounds. It seems that goodness is such a predicate that when you be predicate it of something, you can always ask the question, why? On what grounds?
00:56:19
Speaker
And that is interesting, even from my interpretation.
00:56:26
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, this is kind of a side note, but I have to say, like, when I've thought about the whole analogy versus univocity of goodness thing, um you know, have a paper where I kind of in the you know the review comments, they were kind of like, oh, it seems like you're pushing toward a univocal account. And and Now that I think about it, I feel like the way I was, I was like, yeah, I think this is kind of pushing toward univocal account. And the way I was thinking about it was definitely in terms of grounds. I was thinking, you know, was specifically thinking between God and and creation. i was thinking, you know, it seems like the grounds for saying God is good
00:57:05
Speaker
a human being is good, it's often ultimately coming back to a similar ground. And that's why I'm sort of like, generally speaking, inclined, at least when it comes to God versus human, you know, that there's some kind of university going on because it seems like the ultimate ground looks to be of of the of the predication seems to be the same. So anyway, I guess my point is like, I feel like this grounds thought is pretty, um,
00:57:34
Speaker
it's pretty intuitive in some sense that if the grounds were not one, that would break university. um Do you actually want to talk about um how God is good ah in the acro reading is a bit awkward because, so basically just to,
00:57:53
Speaker
So virtue is good. Okay. Really smooth there, right? ah per Virtue functions as a ground in the sense that a person is good because he is virtuous. yes Virtue is grounding the the goodness of that person.
00:58:06
Speaker
God... So God is, the idea would have to be like, God would have to be a ground of goodness somehow. Anyway, it seems a little bit, can you can you elaborate on that? that's It's kind of an interesting point in your paper. I guess it it would be useful to remark that Akroos' idea is then that Aristotle's list of examples is a list of grounds for goodness. So of things we might mention when replying to the why question, so what grounds.
00:58:32
Speaker
And so, as you were saying, it was works quite but smoothly with virtue. ah And you examples, I guess. The problem is that when it comes to God, it's hard to see what could possibly be good in that it is God, outside of God.
00:58:50
Speaker
So it seems that the only kind of of ah yeah predication you could be grounding in that case would be some kind of self-predication. Well, God is good because it's God. And...
00:59:02
Speaker
that makes it a bit awkward like there seems to be this analogy between god and the other examples and and in general think it's hard to ah maybe not but some people might find it hard to think of god as a ground for goodness just like virtue is they seem to be quite different um but yeah so there there's a is this analogy there and the only kind of Dedication where we can use God as a ground seems to be the one which concerns God specifically. So God is good because it is God. ah
00:59:38
Speaker
Yeah. yeah Yeah. No, it's a really interesting point. I mean, um yeah, like you said, like there's some things you could do. Like maybe it's like, oh, we're thinking of it in terms of divinity. And then maybe the idea is like insofar as something's divine.
00:59:52
Speaker
that's like a good making feature. and Like that that would make sense, but um it doesn't, clearly it's not so smooth. I mean, you talk about how, you know, one criterion when you're judging between these different approaches is you wanna see how smooth it makes the reading of the text. I think that's a really good way of putting it the way you you do.
01:00:11
Speaker
and And so it's not so clear that this is super smooth with respect to Nicola McKee and Ethics 1.6, chapters six of book one. So, um okay, so let's let's now maybe, we didn't really go through the problems yet, but maybe we could, yeah, just go back to your um reading.
01:00:35
Speaker
And, yeah, And yeah, do I mean, yeah, I don't want to be redundant here, but yeah, basic idea for your reading is like, you know, when we're thinking about predicating the cross-categorial predication, what Aristotle's thinking of with respect to God, for example, would be and your on your reading, in virtue of God's essence, God is necessarily good, um where the the good there is not part of the definition of God, but the idea is that whatever God's definition is,
01:01:08
Speaker
following upon that consequently, it entails or something like that, that God is good.
Virtue and God as Good Per Se
01:01:15
Speaker
So good with virtue, kind of a similar thing in virtue of the essence of virtue, virtue is necessarily good, even if good is not part of the the definition. And if you want to talk maybe initial motivations for this, like how how how you came upon this idea or any, I don't know, just any anything like that.
01:01:37
Speaker
Well, i I guess I came upon this idea. First of all, i I was really convinced by Ackles' reading. um It seemed to me to make really good sense of the text and to have some really good textual basis.
01:01:52
Speaker
And my problem, of course, was one, God as a grounds for goodness. I can really wrap my mind around that. and And second, I noticed that in the...
01:02:03
Speaker
um following discussion, Aristotle is clearly concerned with these examples as things which are good themselves. He does mention some of them in the following argument, I think, and he calls them agathats, goods.
01:02:18
Speaker
and which And this prompted the question to me, so how exactly are they good? Because if we take the virtue the virtue, for instance, they are mentioned in that topics passage I was referring to as a grounds for goodness.
01:02:33
Speaker
um so they seem to be able to make other things good so a person can be can be good because they have virtues and but then the question becomes so are the virtues good possibly yes and in what sense are they good why on what grounds are they good and we don't have an explicit answer to that in the European corpus I think but the answer i gave myself is that, well, they're good because they're virtues. they're They're good because of the very things they are, ah which is, I guess, a an informal way of saying what Aristotle would express by saying, well, they're good because of the essence.
01:03:23
Speaker
So what we were getting at earlier, so goodness is not part of their definition. It's not part of what they are. but still they aren't necessarily good because of the very thing things they are.
01:03:36
Speaker
And yeah so I guess that was my the way I came came up upon my my interpretation. So kind of trying, I guess, to... let's say, square the criteria role of these items. So there being grounds for goodness and there being good and trying to see what the former could tell us about the latter. So if a thing is a grounds for goodness, then is it why?
01:04:03
Speaker
So what kind of goodness does he have? And what what kind of question answer do we give to the same question? So about its grounds for goodness.
01:04:14
Speaker
And my intuition was that but we of course of course of course we can discuss it. These examples are things where this question line line of questioning kind of stops. So when you get to the virtues, you cannot but say that they're good because of the things they are. And that's it.
01:04:30
Speaker
You stop there.
01:04:34
Speaker
Oh, interesting. Okay, so... um Okay, so, sorry, are you saying that like part of your motivation was like um the fact that ah So to back up just for a second, just like this idea of good per se, you know, we're talking about some things are good per se in the sense that they are good because of what they are, like you just said. So, um it you know,
01:05:00
Speaker
God is good because of what God is. So in virtue of God's essence, as you say, like that's like one way of kind of making that more technical or you could say, I guess, but yeah, in virtue of God's essence, God is good. So God is good because of what God is because God is his essence in a way. Okay. So, or a virtue is good because of what virtue itself is. So that's, that's an example of a good per se. um Whereas, um,
01:05:30
Speaker
You know, if a table is good, I guess it's it's not as intuitive as just because it's a table that it's good. Maybe it's in virtue of something other than its mere essence that it's good or something. um There's probably better examples than that. But at any rate, that's like one idea. Okay.
01:05:51
Speaker
Now, when it came to the motivation, are you kind of suggesting that, hey, when you try to come up with a ground for why virtue is good, it's tough to to articulate?
01:06:08
Speaker
um Or when you try to come up with a ground for why God is good, it's difficult to articulate? it was that So that was part of your thinking there? Or is it that you were you were you weren't sure that it was outside the essence? or Well, I guess, I mean, Aristotle seems to be prone to ask the grounds question and when it comes to certain examples of a person who is good and the reply to that is that good because of virtues and if we then move one level up as it were um when it comes to virtue itself I guess the same question could be asked or like that's what the question I ask myself so virtue clearly must be good so why is it good and
01:07:01
Speaker
I guess, and as I was saying, there's no, like, text where someone says that. There's no text where he says virtue is good because of itself. ah If there were any texts like that, probably I wouldn't have had the chance to write my paper.
01:07:16
Speaker
um But I guess one intuitive answer is the one I try to give my paper. So virtue is good because it is virtue. And maybe this is more clear, the clearest in the case of God.
01:07:29
Speaker
So it's hard to... see what kind of reply we could give to the grounds question when it comes to god other than it's very being god um and so my so i guess on following this sign of interpretation and all these things are things which are good because of the thing they are god and and with the virtues and so on and and which implies that there's no this analogy like early on we were saying that
01:08:00
Speaker
god god's role as a grounds for goodness is a bit weird but if we take arisopoul's main worry here to be things which are good because of the things they are so exactly this kind of as it would self grounding in a way so all these things ground their own goodness that's the idea and they do this in virtue the essence so and that's the kind of the Aristotelian technical bits I try to develop.
01:08:32
Speaker
But the main insight is is is is the former, so self-grounding. So they're being good because of the thing they are, not because of something external to them.
01:08:43
Speaker
Because i guess when it comes to a person, right, um there is a sense in which someone's being virtues is not identical to them. It's something they could use and they have to develop, surely.
01:08:56
Speaker
um And so, in a sense, a person with virtues is made good by something which is not identical with themselves. And this is not the case of the virtues or of God, if I'm right.
01:09:11
Speaker
Yeah, no, that makes really good sense. Yeah, like person good because of virtue, which is... distinct from the person. So there it's, you want to say, okay, that seems like not a good per se.
01:09:29
Speaker
And now, like you said, you, you, know you know you move up one level and you say, okay, why is virtue itself good? um And you can't say virtue is good because it has virtue.
01:09:40
Speaker
That would be, circular, i think. I mean, yeah. So because we would ask the same question. So, um so, so, so virtue must be good because of what it is itself. Why? And then moving to God, you know, like why is God good?
01:09:57
Speaker
um Well, what could we possibly point to beyond God? So it seems like we're going to say, yeah, God is good because of what God is. um now
01:10:12
Speaker
um It seems like, um would you agree with this? Like, okay, that doesn't mean virtue is good with no ground, but the ground would have to be internal to virtue, not externally attached.
01:10:30
Speaker
So Callius is good because he's virtuous. Okay, that's extrinsic the because Callius can have or not have virtue whereas with a sort of intrinsic goodness or per se case um the the virtue is going to be good because of its own essence and so the ground would just be something that's necessarily tied to what virtue is and so it can't fail to have this ground and still be um um so um
01:11:11
Speaker
So anyway, I think I'm just kind of repeating what you said there, but okay. um So, I mean, so one thing maybe at this point is, it's interesting where it's like, it seems like we have a few good options on
Critiques of Interpretations and Univocal Goodness
01:11:25
Speaker
the table. So maybe let's try to talk about, you know, you know what ah makes your option preferable to the other options.
01:11:38
Speaker
I don't know Yeah. So how should we enter into that type of question? I mean, I guess you've already been touching on it to some degree, but yeah. Should we start from the first one we we introduced, the Hardee's? Yeah. Yeah. I think because, um yeah, one thing to mention is that Hardee's is in some ways similar to yours in that it's a strong approach in in the sense of like, well, how to put that? So like, if good belongs to the essence of God,
01:12:07
Speaker
um when we're thinking about the cross-categorial predication, we're not just saying, oh, you can predicate god of good goodness of God like you can predicate white of Kalias. We're talking about something that's going deeper. It's like a more profound unity between goodness and God than just...
01:12:24
Speaker
um whiteness connection to callius anyway so yours is also has that deeper unity when we're talking about the goodness of god we're saying hey this is something that necessarily follows upon the essence of god um so anyway there's a kind of similarity between your view and hardy's um so yeah do you want to offer any thoughts about yeah why why not hardy's view well um Yeah, mean, as I said, it allows the smooth reading of the text and doesn't allow for good explanation of our sort of thing of thought here.
01:12:59
Speaker
ah Because of course, something which is tied to these to the identity as it were the essence of these example cannot be at the same time in different categories, right? That's what needs to follow. um So my my problems with his interpretation ah So the first is that, um of course, this would commit our sort of the principle about differentiate.
01:13:25
Speaker
And um so the an item cannot be um a differential, the pedicure cannot be a differential of things belonging to different categories without the by being non-vocal.
01:13:42
Speaker
So the sufficient condition we're talking about earlier. And this could be true, but as many people will know, at least listeners of this podcast, the status of differentiation is quite problematic.
01:14:00
Speaker
So we need to be cautious when committing him to such a principle of differentiation. But I think this worry might be overcome. I guess my main problem with this interpretation is that it doesn't seem to fit well with Aristotle's actual definition.
01:14:18
Speaker
ah So when it comes to defining moral virtue, for instance, in the truth of the academic and ethics, we don't get an explicit mention of goodness. Like if if goodness were a differentiator of virtue, we might expect the ah definition to run somewhat as follows. So virtue is a quality which is good.
01:14:39
Speaker
But Aristotle actually has a different definition definition um which i can't really remember right now but it's it's uh it doesn't crucially mention goodness explicitly and there might be a reason for that i mean i guess i might be go slightly sidetracked here um like of course giving the essence like um defining the essence for example is really important it
01:15:11
Speaker
it's crucial for explanation right when we define something we say it is at its essence since we kind of explain what it is and in a way saying that virtues are just qualities which are good is not really um at least to my eye yeah doesn't really say that much it would be a bit disappointing if god it would just be the substance which is good um
01:15:36
Speaker
there There seems to be something more to God and the virtues and and so on. and And so, yeah, that's my my my main problem with Hardee's interpretation. Yeah, yeah. Like, um yeah, so, so, so, yeah, so Aristotle's own definition of virtue, for example, it doesn't use good. And and if we're thinking of...
01:16:00
Speaker
you know, good belonging to the essence definition of, let's say, virtue, you'd think it would come up. And, you know, so when he defines it, it's, you know, something along lines of it's like state or disposition involving choice. Yes, I have it here if you want me to. Oh, yeah, yeah, please. Yeah, please. It's a disposition issuing a decision depending on intermediacy of the kind relative to us, this being determined by rational prescription and in a way in which a wise person would determine it.
01:16:27
Speaker
And of course like i'm not claiming that this has nothing to do with with goodness like my actually it's sickly connected to goodness but what is crucial for my reading is that goodness does not function as a differential here and um it would be amazing we had other like definitions of these items so god with and and the command and so on by our school we don't but i think this Definition of but of moral but virtue is a good reason to think that having goodness as a differentia Is not something which Aristotle is thinking about and could be quite disappointing when it comes to explanation To explain what virtue is. Yeah, right.
01:17:16
Speaker
Yeah, and and just to um Yeah mention like, you know, if if if good were to be a differentia, you know, then Virtue would be something like virtue equals, so you'd have the genus first, I guess, so like disposition, and then you would have plus the differentiating factor, so plus good.
01:17:40
Speaker
And so so good would have to be the the second, you know, so virtue equals disposition plus good. That's what it would look like if, if if good was part of the definition as a differentia. Or commensurate, you know, that would be something like, okay, well, commensurate, the genus is quantity. So if good is going to be the differentia, then it's going to be like commensurate equals quantity plus goodness or plus good. yeah and And like you said, the issue here is, that you know, we just don't find
01:18:13
Speaker
Aristotle, finding things like that. And then also, yeah, this other kind of interesting point, maybe a deeper, that deeper point of like, it wouldn't be very satisfying either. Um, which I think is right. Although I guess on the other hand, it, it, it's funny because it's also seems like in a way that it's correct. Like,
01:18:32
Speaker
In a way, it's true. Like, yeah, like that is what a virtue is. It's the it's those de dispositions that are good. yeah mean that ah so So anyway, that's the kind of other thing that's interesting. But OK.
01:18:45
Speaker
OK, good. So um maybe we can do one more quickly. I don't know. do you want to talk a little bit about. Yeah, i don't know. Whichever one you want, Shields, Akril, do you want Well, I guess we have touched on Akril already, you know, when it came to God as a grant for goodness. Yeah. um Even though, as as I said, I really share his insights about this kind of grounding when it comes to the dedication of good. of good um So just to say, really... Some things is about Shields. ah
01:19:16
Speaker
As I said, it's it's really interesting what he comes comes up with. um And I guess... So one problem is that, of course, we get no clue that something as complicated is going on in our text.
01:19:33
Speaker
It's just saying, you're despacitated in if any way as being. We find gods, the god god virtues and so on. So that's it. So we really need to read a lot into the text.
01:19:46
Speaker
And, you know, that's a cost when it comes to interpretation. And the second reason is that Aristotle seems to allow in different places that one can use goods as ah as a predicate.
01:19:59
Speaker
um There's one famous example in the Interpretatione where he says that it doesn't follow that if someone is a, what was the example, cobbler?
01:20:12
Speaker
Cobbler, yeah. Yeah, and they they they're good, good applause, he says, and that seems to be a predicative use, not as an attribute. It doesn't follow that so that some that they are a good cobbler.
01:20:24
Speaker
Um, so he seems to be okay with using good as a predicate and, and this might undermine children's interpretation. Um, I think, uh, but, but I guess the main reason is that the text is quite, seems quite simple when it comes to his way of, clean of thought.
01:20:43
Speaker
So If we are to read this much into it, we should be sure that another reading reading is not available, which is simpler and less, let's say, expensive when it comes to interpreting the text.
01:21:03
Speaker
And which which, yeah, that's what, yeah, which is precisely what I try to come up with. Yeah, yeah, no, so, yeah, so it's, so it might be philosophically,
01:21:15
Speaker
powerful to some degree, but yeah, it just, it's kind of lacking, um, kind of clear textual support and maybe, yeah, conflicts with places where, um, Aristotle does seem to use good predicatively, you know, just, um, it, so in other words, it's, it's not necessary for, yeah, you can call someone, um, a cobbler good as a good cobbler, or you could say, um,
01:21:40
Speaker
I always think of like, you could say a killing is good as it's a good killing, but that, you know, but Aristotle seems to allow for saying, you know, besides saying the cobbler is a good cobbler, you can say the cobbler is good. And so that would just be a more straightforward predicative. Yeah, it does seem to have a way of like at least distinguishing the two and it does use a plus to mark the predicative views.
01:22:06
Speaker
Right. Awesome. Well, I mean, this has been awesome conversation. and you know I highly recommend this paper to everyone listening. I mean, it's absolutely fascinating and distinguishing these different readings. And um I don't know, is there anything you wanted to, that we we didn't touch on that you'd want to bring up? or mean, I guess since we mentioned it at the beginning, so that the dialectical effectiveness.
01:22:33
Speaker
So i guess I guess on any reading we go for, Um, it might not be the case that the platonic opponent will buy the argument. Like it seems, it seems quite a recent media, right?
01:22:45
Speaker
And, um, and even in my reading, that's probably, you know, an opponent must be ready to subscribe to the theory of that category. Then for example, to the babies, um, but of course it's, it's not a given that Aristotle is interested in actually refuting real platonic opponents and And after all, in in book one, he does say things about the kind of audience which is um appropriate for this kind of of inquiry. And he does seem to think that we need, let's say, people are already, and they're not, of course, wicked ah and the same type of malleable. So they have some kind of maturity.
01:23:30
Speaker
um They have some kind of moral qualities and which make them especially prone to us absorbing Aristotle's message and of course I mean I take it that one can be have some more qualities without being a platonist like not being a platonist surely is not ah a requirement to be part of the audience but maybe this kind of you know, closed doors staging could help explain why sort of not especially especially concerned with dialectical effectiveness.
01:24:05
Speaker
So yeah, that's one thing i wanted to say. And, and yeah, maybe just one last thing, but I don't want to to interrupt, like, um I guess,
01:24:18
Speaker
we haven't really touched upon, right? I haven't really explained then why this principle about non-invulsivity should be convincing. So why is it the case that if things are good because of themselves, so then good is not univocal.
01:24:38
Speaker
And of course, it's it's a mystery, but one possible explanation could be that this kind of setting makes explanation for goodness quite hard right so let's say we start from the person with virtues why the goods well because the virtues and why is virtue good well because it is virtue so it seems that we have all these cases of things which are good because of other things so virtue gods well
01:25:10
Speaker
ah It's a bit hard. It's a virtue commensurate and so on. Then we get to the second level. But once we get to the second level, we can never go beyond it. So if we cannot come up with an explanation of the goodness of all things, right, we have a disjunction, right? We have to say, well, things are good in general because either they're gods or the virtues or and so on. So that seems to kind of prevent a unified explanation of goodness.
01:25:40
Speaker
And that might might give us a possible explanation to, I suppose, thing of thought. So that that was a lot. I'm i'm really sorry. ah but I just wanted to get the point across.
01:25:54
Speaker
No, yeah, no, it's it's really, yeah, I mean, that's really crucial. It's like, okay, once we have, know if you if we follow your interpretation, then we, you know, um we have to think about, okay, so what principle then would Aristotle be relying upon in this argument? And it's like um
01:26:16
Speaker
basically something like, you know if a predicate F applies per se to to things in different categories, then F is not univocal. And yeah, and then and then the question goes, yeah how plausible is that principle? And and and that's you know that's that's kind of a really deep philosophical question that's super interesting. And and in and and like you said, um there's this kind of point about um
01:26:45
Speaker
it's you know it's not clear that we have a single thing here. God is good because it is God. Virtue is good because it is virtue. commensurate is good because it is commensurate. And then when we try to explain goodness generally, um it almost seems like we end up with a disjunction.
01:27:02
Speaker
God is good because it is God or or sorry, something's good because it's God or because it's virtue or because it's commensurate or because it's opportune, et cetera. And so, it you know, it doesn't look like the ideal setting for univocity. It seems like this is a challenging situation for someone who wants to go for a univocal account. um Well, fantastic. Michaela, I really appreciate you coming on, talking about your your paper. it's It's absolutely fascinating. And so I really appreciate you coming on. Thank you having me. I really enjoyed this conversation.
01:27:35
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. i mean Before we close, do you mind telling us a little bit about what you're working on now? Well, actually, my current project is about skepticism and sexual empirics more specifically. So I've kind of moved away from Aristotle for a bit, and especially specifically about the uh constant appearance in sectors so yeah different sets of questions but some really interesting and that's cool yeah awesome well we look forward to yeah reading uh that kind of work when it comes out hopefully yeah all right thanks again michael thanks