조나단 반즈 - 아리스토텔레스 (Jonathan Barnes - Aristotle)

* 조나단 반즈 -[아리스토텔레스의 철학], 문계석 옮김, 서광사

 

*지식은 체계적이어야 하고 통일되어야 한다. 지식의 구조는 논리학에 의해 주어지며, 그 통일은 근본적으로 존재론에 의존한다. 지식은 본질적으로 설명이다. 지식론은 깊은 철학적인 문제를 제기한다. 아리스토텔레스는 이 모든 것을, 아니 이보다 더 많은 것을 아카데미아에서 배웠다. 지금까지 논의된 다섯 가지 문제에 대하여 아리스토텔레스가 비록 플라톤의 세심한 정교함과 깊이 일치하지는 않는다 하더라도 원칙적으로는 플라톤 편에 서 있다. (48)

*논리학에 대해서는, 아리스토텔레스를 계승한 사람들은 논리학의 위치를 확신하지 못하였다. 후기의 어떤 철학자는 논리학이란 철학의 “부분”--수학과 자연 과학에 병행해서 위치가 정해지는 과목--이라고 주장했다. 아리스토텔레스의 제자를 포함한 또 다른 철학자들은 논리학이란 철학의 도구--철학자와 과학자의 연구 대상은 아니지만 그들에 의해 사용되는 어떤 것--라고 진술했다. 그렇다면 논리학은 철학의 일부이자 도구인 것만은 명확하다. 그러므로 과거의 논쟁은 논리학이 이 두 측면의 것일 수 없다는 잘못된 믿음에서 비롯된 것이다. (56)

*아리스토델레스는 철학의 대부분의 중요한 용어가 다의적이라고 생각했다. 그는 [소피스트들에 대한 반박론]에서 다의성에 기반을 둔 궤변적인 혼란을 탐구하고 해결하는 데 많은 노력을 기울였다. (81)

*분명히 소크라테스는 그의 창백함 없이도 있을 수 있다. (왜냐하면 그는 태양빛에 얼굴이 검게 그을러서 창백하지 않을 수도 있기 때문이다.) 그러나 소크라테스의 창백함은 소크라테스 없이는 있을 수 없다. 소크라테스는 자신의 창백함으로부터 분리될 수는 있지만, 소크라테스의 창백함은 소크라테스로부터 분리될 수 없다. 이것이 바로 아리스토텔레스가 분리 가능성에 대해 말하고자 한 부분이다. 그러나 이것이 완전한 설명은 아닐 것이다. 어떤 경우에 소크라테스는 창백하지 않을 수는 있겠지만, 모든 색깔이 완전히 결여된 상태로 존재할 수는 없다. 다시 말해 그는 이 창백함으로부터 분리될 수 있을지는 모르지만, 그와 같은 색깔로부터 분리되어 있는 것은 아니다. (86)

*아리스토텔레스의 견해에 따르면, 자연에 우연적인 현상이 있지만 이것은 학문의 대상이 아니다. 이것은 진보된 학문의 부분을 형성할 수 없다. 그러면 이것은 아리스토텔레스가 세계는 어느 정도까지는 비결정적이고 사건이 모두가 다 까닭의 고리로부터 벗어나 있음을 의미하는 것일까? 그는 분명히 그렇다고는 생각하지 않는다. (109)

*모든 동물은. . . 소위 감각 지각이라고 하는 식별할 수 있는 천부적인 능력을 갖는다. 그리고 동물이 감각 지각할 때 어떤 동물은 지각 대상을 확보하지만, 어떤 동물은 확보하지 못한다. 그래서 지각 대상을 확보하지 못하는 동물은...감각 지각 이외의 어떠한 지식도 없다. 그러나 지각하는 어떤 동물에게 지각된 대상을 정신 속에 확보하는 것이 가능하므로, 지각된 대상이 많이 생겼을 때 어떤 구분이 일어난다. 그래서 그러한 지각 대상을 확보함으로부터 어떤 동물은 일반적인 설명을 갖는 반명, 어떤 동물은 그렇지 못하다. 그러므로 우리가 말하듯이 지각으로부터 기억이 생겨나며, 기억으로부터(같은 것에 대한 기억이 반복해서 일어났을 때) 경험이 나온다. 왜냐하면 여러 번의 기억은 하나의 경험을 형성하기 때문이다. 그리고 경험으로부터 혹은 정신 속에 전체로서 확립된 보편적인 것으로부터...기술의 원리와 지식의 원리가 나온다. (111) (아리스)

*지각에 대하여 아리스토텔레스는 사실 매우 진지하게 회의적인 입장을 취하지도 않았고, 보편화함에 대하여 회의적인 의심에 깊이 빠지지도 않았다. 후기 그리스 철학의 커다란 작업은 아리스토텔레스가 소홀히 한 부분을 보충하는 것이었다. 그래서 인식론적인 문제는 스토아 학파, 에피쿠로스 학파, 회의주의 학파의 중심 문제가 되었다. (114)

*아리스토텔레스의 주요 논의는 물리적인 우주가 공간적으로 유한하지만 시간적으로 무한하다는 것이다. 시작도 없이 존재했고 끝없이 존속할 우주는 거대하지만 한계가 있는 구이다. (117)

*우리는 우주의 신성한 것에 대한 아리스토텔레스의 진술을 자연과 그 작용이 그에게 심어 준 경이로움의 의미와 연관시켜야 한다. “경이 때문에 인간은 지금이나 예전이나 철학을 연구하기 시작하며,” 철학의 연구는 적절히 수행되면 최초의 열망을 떨쳐 버리지 못한다. (121)

*혼은 살아 있는 무엇이거나 생명을 불러일으키는 것이기 때문에 살아 있는 것, 혹은 “생명을 불러일으키는 것”이라는 단어로 사용됨에 틀림없다. (122)

“영혼이--혹은 영혼이 부분을 갖는다면 그 부분들이--육체와 분리될 수 없다는 것은 명백하다.” 성취는 성취도는 것과 따로 떨어져 존재할 수 없다. 영혼은 신체의 성취이다. 따라서 기술이 기술자와 따로 떨어져 존재할 수 없듯이, 영혼은 육체와 따로 떨어져 존재할 수 없다. 플라톤은, 영혼은 그것이 생명을 일으키는 대상으로서의 육체의 탄생 이전에 존재했고, 육체가 사멸한 후에도 살아 남는다고 주장했다. 그러나 아리스토텔레스는 이것이 사실 불가능하다고 생각했다. 영혼은 홀로 살아 남을 수 있는 그런 종류의 것이 아니다. 나의 기술이나 나의 성격, 나의 기질이 어떻게 나를 살아 남게 할 수 있겠는가? (125)

*아리스토텔레스의 목적론은 때때로 “자연은 어떤 것도 쓸모없이 하지는 않는다”는 것으로 요약된다. (136)

*Jonathan Barnes, Aristotle, Oxford

 

*A man's noblest aim is to immortalise himself or imitate the gods; for in doing so he becomes most fully a man and most fully himself. And such self-realisation requires him to act on that desire for knowledge which as a man he naturally possesses. Aristotle's recipe for 'happiness' may be thought a little severe or restricted, and he was perhaps optimistic in ascribing to the generality of mankind his own passionate desire for learning . But his recipe came from the heart: Aristotle counsels us to live our lives as he himself tried to live his own. (2)

*Why did Aristotle suddenly abandon the pleasures of the Lyceum and retire to remote Chalcis? He said that 'he did not want the Athenians to commit a second crime against philosophy'. The first crime had been Socrates' trial and execution. Aristotle feared that he might suffer Socrates' fate, and his fears had a political basis. (5)

*Aristotle's advice to attend to reputable opinions is more than the banal suggestion that before beginning research you should see what other men have done. Men desire by nature to discover the truth. Nature would not have given men such a desire and left it impossible of satisfaction. Hence if men generally believe something--if a thing is reputable--that is a sign that it is more likely to be true than false. (16)

*Aristotle was no less impressed than Plato by the power of axiomatisation, but he did not believe Plato's optimistic claim that all knowledge could be founded upon a single set of axioms. For he was equally impressed by the apparent independence of the sciences. (23)

*Aristotle is, in effect, claiming that he has produced a complete and perfect logic. The claim is audacious, and it is false; for there are in fact innumerably many inferences that Aristotle's theory cannot analyse. The reason is simple: Aristotle's theory of inference is based upon his theory of propositions, and the deficiencies of the latter produce deficiencies in the former. Yet those deficiencies are not readily seen, and later thinkers were so impressed by the power and elegance of Aristotle's syllogistic that for two millennia the Analytics were taught as though they constituted the sum of logical truth. (31)

*According to Aristotle, 'we think we know a thing(in the unqualified sense, and not in the sophistical sense or accidentally) when we think we know both the cause because of which a thing is (and know that it is its cause) and also that it is not possible for it to be otherwise'. A zoologist, then, will know that cows have four stomachs if, first, he knows why they do (if he knows that they have four stomachs because of such-and-such a fact) and, secondly, he knows that cows must have four stomachs (that it does not merely happen to be the case that they do). Those two conditions set upon knowledge govern Aristotle's whole approach to axiomatic science in the Posterior Analytics.

*A definition, in Aristotle's sense, is not a statement of what some word means. (It is no part of the meaning of the word 'cow' that cows are ruminants; for we all know what 'cow' means long before we know that cows are ruminants.) Rather, definitions state the essence of a thing, what it is to be that thing. (It is part of the essential nature of a cow that it is a ruminants; what it is to be a cow is to be a ruminant animal of a certain kind.) Some modern philosophers have rejected--and ridiculed--Aristotle's talk of essences. But in fact Aristotle grasped an important part of the scientific endeavour: from the fundamental natures of substances and stuffs--from their essences--the scientist seeks to explain their other, nonessential, properties. Aristotle's axiomatic sciences will start from essences and successively explain derivative properties. (34)

*And indeed Aristotle is surely mistaken in asserting that knowledge is always causal. But it would be wrong simply to lament the mistake and pass on. Aristotle, like Plato before him, was primarily concerned with a special type of knowledge--with what we may call scientific understanding; and it is plausible to claim that scientific understanding involves knowledge of causes. (34)

*It is undeniable that many of Aristotle's treatises are, in large part, aporetic in style--they do discuss problems, and discuss them piecemeal. It is also undeniable that the treatises contain little or nothing in the way of axiomatised development. It is right to stress those points. But it is wrong to infer that Aristotle was not at bottom a systematic thinker. The theory expounded in the Posterior Analytics cannot be dismissed as an irrelevant archaism, a mere genuflection to Plato's ghost. (38)

*Existence, like healthiness, possesses unity in diversity; and substance is the focal point of existence as health is of healthiness. That is the chief way in which the class of substances is primary in relation to the other categories of being. (43)

*Aristotle's arguments against the Platonic theory were first set out in a special treatise On the Ideas, which survives only in fragments. He returned to the attack again, and produced a vast and varied array of considerations against the theory. In addition, he offered a group of more general arguments against any view that takes universals to be substances.

Aristotle held that for whiteness to exist is for certain substances to be white. Plato, on the contrary, held that for a substance to be white is for it to share in whiteness. In Aristotle's opinion, white things are prior to whiteness, for the existence of whiteness is simply a matter of there being white things. In Plato's opinion, whiteness is prior to white things, for the existence of white things is simply a matter of their sharing in whiteness. Aristotle's arguments against Platonism demand close inspection; many of them are powerful, but it is only fair to say that they have not convinced determined Platonists. (46)

*Matter and form are not physical components of substances: you cannot cut up a bronze statue into two separate bits, its bronze and its shape. Rather, matter and form are logical parts of substances: an account of what substances are requires mention both of their stuff and of their structure. Nor should we imagine the matter as the physical aspect of a substance and the form as a sort of non-physical additive: both stuff and structure are aspects of the unitary physical object. (48)

*Aristotle says that 'the cause is the middle term': to ask why S is P is, as it were, to look for a link joining S to P; and that link will constitute a 'middle term' between S and P. 'Why is S P?'--'Because of M.' More fully: 'S is P, because S is M, and M is P.' Why do cows have several stomachs? Because cows are ruminants and ruminants have several stomachs. Not all explanations need actually have that specific form; but Aristotle holds that all explanations can be couched in that form, and that the form exhibits the nature of causal connections most perspicuously. (53)

*The ultimate source of knowledge is, in Aristotle's view, perception. Aristotle was a thoroughgoing empiricist in two senses of that terms. First, he held that the notions or concepts with which we seek to grasp reality are all ultimately derived from perception, 'and for that reason, if we did not perceive anything, we would not learn or understand anything, and whenever we think of anything we must at the same time think of an idea'. Secondly, he thought that the science or knowledge in which our grasp of reality consists is ultimately grounded on perceptual observations. (58)

*Knowledge, is sum, is bred by generalisation out of perception. (59)

*The fact is that Aristotle did not take sceptical doubts about perception very seriously, and he did not pay any attention to sceptical doubts about generalisation. one great service of later Greek philosophy was to make up for Aristotle's omission: epistemological questions became the focus of attention for Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics. (60)

*Thus Aristotle's souls are not pieces of living things; rather, they are not bits of spiritual stuff placed inside the living body; rather, they are sets of powers, capacities, or faculties. Possessing a soul is like possessing a skill. a skilled man's skill is not some part of him, responsible for his skilled acts; similarly, a living creature's animator or life-force is not some part of it, responsible for its living activities. (66)

*Fulfilments cannot exist apart from the things that are fulfilled. Souls are fulfilments of bodies. Hence souls cannot exist apart from bodies, any more than skills can exist apart from skilled men. Plato had held that souls pre-existed the birth and survived the death of those bodies they animated. Aristotle thought that that was impossible. A soul is simply not the sort of thing that could survive. How could my skills, my temper or my character survive me? (67)

*‘Nature does nothing in vain' is a regulative principle for scientific enquiry. Aristotle knows that some aspects of nature are functionless. But he recognises that a grasp of function is crucial to an understanding of nature. His slogans about the prudence of Nature are not pieces of childish superstitions, but reminders of a central task of the natural scientist. (77)

*That notion of the goal of the State is linked to another high ideal. 'A fundamental principle of democratic constitutions is liberty. . . one form of liberty is to rule and to be ruled turn and turn about. . . Another form is to live as one wishes; for men say that that is the aim of liberty, since to live not as one wishes is the mark of a slave.' Liberty at home is complemented by a pacific external policy; for Aristotelian States, although armed for defence, will have no imperialist ambitions. (But Aristotle is said to have urged Alexander the Great to 'deal with Greeks in the manner of a leader, with foreigners in that of a master, caring for the former as friends and relatives, treating the latter as animals or plants'.) (81)

*Aristotle's conception of tragedy, which had a profound effect upon the later history of European drama, may seem blinkered. His definition hardly fits the great tragedies of Shakespeare, not to mention the works of modern playwrights whose heroes, or antiheroes, possess neither the social standing nor the grand history of an Oedipus. But Aristotle was not attempting to produce a 'theory' of tragedy which would hold good for all time. He was telling his contemporaries, who worked within the conventions of the Greek stage, how to write a play. (His advice is based upon a mass of empirical research into the history of Greek drama.) (84)

*His greatest single achievement was surely his biology. By the work recorded in the Researches, the Parts of Animals, and the Generation of Animals, he founded the science of biology, set it on a sure empirical and philosophical basis, and gave it the shape it would retain until the nineteenth century. Second only to his biology is his logic. Here too Aristotle founded a new science, and Aristotle's logic remained until the end of the last century to logic of European thought. Few men have founded one sciences; Aristotle apart, none has founded more than one. (87)