Aristotelian & Thomist thought (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, July 05, 2013, 13:07 (4160 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Leads to this:-"Hence the Necessary Existent, Avicenna concludes, is an intellect."
From my favorite philosopher who once was an atheist:-http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2013/07/avicennas-argument-from-contingency.html#more-Feser: The Necessary Existent, Avicenna holds, must be unique. For suppose there were two or more Necessary Existents. Then each would have to have some aspect by which it differs from the other -- something that this Necessary Existent has that that one does not. In that case they would have to have parts. But a thing that has parts is not necessary in itself, since it exists through its parts and would thus be necessary only through them. Since the Necessary Existent is necessary in itself, it does not have parts, and thus lacks anything by which one Necessary Existent could even in principle differ from another. So there cannot be more than one.-The Necessary Existent is clearly both necessary and existent, but it is necessary to question what the Necessary Existent is necessary for, since necessity necessitates a need, and a need necessarily necessitates a needer which necessitates existence of some kind since non-existence needs nothing. A thing that has parts may need its parts, which makes the parts necessary to the thing than needs them but does not mean that the thing that needs them is not necessary in itself unless we agree that nothing is necessary in itself since existence in itself is not necessary. So nothing is necessary except what is necessary to the existent, and since there are countless existences, there are countless Necessary Existents or there are no Necessary Existents, depending on who or what needs what and who or what defines what is necessary and what is not necessary. -Two can play at this game.-FESER: It is also part of Avicenna's background metaphysics that what makes a thing intelligible -- that is, what makes it the proper object of an intellect, a concept -- is separation from matter. (This is a common theme in ancient and medieval philosophy. See my ACPQ paper "Kripke, Ross, and the Immaterial Aspects of Thought" for a detailed defense of the immateriality of strictly intellectual activity, as opposed to mere sensation or imagination.) Moreover, the further a thing is from matter, the more intelligible it is. Avicenna also thinks of an intellect as just that which has something essentially intelligible. Now the Necessary Existent has its existence essentially, and being an immaterial kind of existence its existence is something essentially intelligible. Hence the Necessary Existent, Avicenna concludes, is an intellect.-"Intelligible" = can be understood. Intelligible to whom? Who decides what is the "proper" object of an intellect? What sort of "thing" is he talking about? Is a disembodied sound more "intelligible" than a potato? Is the intellect more easily understood than the workings of the hip joint? Is anything immaterial essentially intelligible? Is anything immaterial essentially existent? Can any essentially immaterial existence be essentially intelligible since without material manifestation its existence cannot even be perceived let alone understood? As Feser is your favourite philosopher, David, I can only assume that you find all of this intelligible.