TOPOS: PLACE

SECTION 3

“Self” in Heidegger might be considered as a “place” to be filled. But Hume, on the other hand, has raised serious objections as to whether a “self” can be any sort of “invariable and uninterrupted” container. In fact, Hume has severely restricted the “my self” to “his own present ideas” giving “past ideas” an aspect as being questionably “his” and thus how the self is at all “conceived in the imagination” as any sort of reality.

Aristotle conceives of something like an “invariable and uninterrupted” identity of sots with topos or ‘place’ which acts as a boundary within which experience can happen, identities can be made, and movement and change accounted or measured. The SAME ‘place’ can be filled and emptied with water, comparisons of experience can produce likenesses as well as inconsistencies and changes thereof, and also follow some course of movement comparing this moment and place with the next moment and place. But is this sufficient for ‘identity’? Does the ‘person’ or ‘personal’ really exist as ‘identity’ or is it really the body viewed as ‘mine’? What would “mine-ness” mean here? Would it solve Hume’s problem of being able to say “his own present ideas” are truly identifiable as ‘his’, but “why certain past ideas, to which ‘someone’ has immediate access, count as ‘his,’ and, correlatively, he finds it problematic to determine what the ‘he,’ who has immediate access, actually is and how this individual can be conceived in the imagination”, Don Garrett, ibid, page 185.

Aristotle says at PHYSICS, Bk IV, 1, 208a27- :

3. “A natural scientist must inform himself not only on the infinite but also on place (GCM: the unbounded versus what binds: “What is infinite is unknowable insofar as it is infinite,” [187b7]. “Nature’ here is not Romantic ‘nature’, but “definition” per se. It is not describing ‘natural beings’ but ‘things’ as such. Animals are primarily moving objects. Nothing “has the source of its own production within itself; rather this source is in an agent external to the product or, when the thing happens incidentally to act upon itself, the source is in some distinct aspect of the product itself.” {GCM: A physician can heal himself.} [193a29-32]) . . . the kinds of “movement” involved in all the types of change and most strictly so called in change of place . . . The question, What is place? presents many difficulties. An examination of all the relevant facts seems to lead to different conclusions. Moreover, we have inherited nothing from previous thinkers.” [208a27-208a37]

4. “Nevertheless, it clearly seems to be a fact that place ‘is’. First, there is displacement. (GCM: One would not know there is a place unless there was ‘displacement’ or change.) Place seems to be different from all the bodies which successively displace one another. That “in” which the air is now, is that “in” which the water was before. Consequently, the place was clearly something, that is the location was clearly different from the bodies . . . (GCM: Change is also within the context of viewpoint, position of body, up, down, left, right, etc.) Not only is place something, but also it exerts a functional significance . . . These are regions or kinds of place . . . To us they are not always the same but change in the direction in which we are turned [as we change our position]: that is why the same thing is both right and left, up and down, before and behind. But in nature each is distinct, independently of our own position [GCM: as definition or ‘nature’ per se] . . . This is also clarified by mathematical representations: though they do not have their being in a place, they nevertheless have distinctions of position

(like “right” and “left”) relative to us; they have their “position” therefore in concept only, but they do not have any position in their own nature. Again, the theory that the void exists involves the existence of place; for one would define void as place bereft of body.” [208b1-208b27]

5. “For these reasons, then, we may regard place as something distinct from bodies . . . (GCM: Would ‘personal’ then be distinct from the changeable body?) Everything is somewhere, that is, in a place. If such is the status of place, it must have a functional significance surpassing that of the most astounding phenomenon. If nothing else can continue in being without it whereas it remains when everything else vacates it, place must indeed rank first; for place does not perish with the perishing things in it.” (GCM: my italics). [208b28-209a2]

6. “. . . The fact that we cannot distinguish between a point and its place implies that a place that cannot differ from a point, cannot differ from a line or a plane or a body either; therefore, a place cannot be anything different from any limit of the body. What, then, could we possibly deem place to be?” [209a11-16]

7. “. . . Then there is this difficulty: if place is itself a being among beings, then place, too, must be somewhere . . .” [209a24-5]

8. “It would seem very difficult to find out what place is if it is either matter or form, for these are hard to tell apart . . .(GCM: It is impossible to fully perceived, as one could another body, one’s personal body) Place cannot be either form or mater. Form and mater cannot be disassociated from that to which they belong, as place can . . . Place seems to be like a receptacle, which is a movable part (GCM: It can be ‘carried’. See in “Time” next letter) but which is not itself a part of its contents. Thus, as distinct from the body whose place it is, place is not the body’s form, or . . . from the body’s material. What is somewhere is one thing; what surrounds it, is quite another.” [209b19-34]

9. “. . . Place must be . . . the limit of the surrounding body (at which this body is in contact with the body it surrounds), provided that the surrounded body is capable of local motion.” [212a4-6]

10. “Now, place is regarded as something important but hard to grasp because matter and form appear with it . . . As a receptacle is a place that can be transported, so place is a receptacle that cannot be transported. When a body moves and changes its place within something in motion (for example, a boat in a river), the immediately surrounding body functions as a receptacle rather than as a place; whereas place tends to be motionless (so that it is a whole river which, being motionless as a whole [GCM: my italics], functions as a place). Thus, the place of anything is the first unmoved boundary of what surrounds it.
(Richard Hope’s italics). [212a8-21] (GCM: The “unmoved mover” called “God in the PHYSICS and the METAPHYSICS is a concept of physics relating to the ‘origin’ of physical, especially cosmological, motion. There is no reason to consider this concept ‘theological’ as Aristotle does the gods in TOPICS, Bk I, 11, 105a3-7: “For people who are puzzled to know whether one ought to honor the gods and love one’s parents or not need punishment, while those who are puzzled to know whether snow is white or not need perception.”

11. “This is the reason why the center of the cosmos and the inner surface of the rotating celestial system are conceived as functionally down and up for all men . . . For this reason, too, place seems to be a sort of surface as if it were a receptacle or container. Furthermore, place is in some sense coincident with the thing whose place it is, for boundaries are coincident with what they bound.” (Remember the start? ‘infinity’?) [212a22-31]

12. “. . . Some things are only incidentally in a place, for example, the soul and the cosmos. All the parts of the cosmos are somehow in a place, since one contains another on the circle. Hence the celestial sphere moves in a circle, yet the All [Hardie & Gaye: “the universe or the Whole”] is not anywhere: what is somewhere both is something and must have something else encompassing it; but beyond the All there is nothing outside the All. Thus, all things are in the cosmos, since the cosmos is the All . . .” [212b11-18]

13. “Place is somewhere, though not in the sense of being in a place but in the sense in which there is a limit in what is limited; for not everything is in a place, but only a movable body.” [212b27-9]

14. “So much for the fact that place is and for an account of what place is.” {213a10] trans. Richard Hope, U. of Nebraska Press, 1961

Leaving out the accounts of things in relative place and particular, and concentrating on the nature of “place” itself, Aristotle is abrupt and vague, but suggestive. Here, in the PHYSICS, as the two ‘things’ “only incidentally in a place”, there is, on the one hand, “All things are in the cosmos, since the cosmos is the all”, and on the other hand, “The soul is in a way all existing things” (or “Man’s soul is, in a certain way, entities” [M&R SuZ 14 {34}] or “the soul is in a way all the things that exist”, DE ANIMA, 3, 8, 431b21; cf. ibid. 3, 5, 430a14ff. Heidegger adds in paraphrase, “The ‘soul’ which makes up the being of man has aesthesis and noesis among its ways of Being, and in these it discovers all entities, both in the fact that they are, and in their Being as they are – that is, always in their Being.”).

The “soul”, then, as one extreme of that pair, is unmoved, unchanging, and just as Whole as the “All”. As such, it is “comprehension” or “intuition” [nous] which “grasps”, as in hexein, “unchanging things” or “immutable nature” through making boundaries for the changeable. But, of course, as a fundamentally changing being, human being can only know what is “unchanging” and “immutable” purely analogically as something to define the thing that is changing. This is primarily derived from topos, “place”, which would be, to twist the term, “the nature of nature” or “the definition of definition” or “the laying out of the facts of the matter”. “All teaching and all learning of an intellectual kind proceed from pre-existent knowledge.” [71a1]

15. “Before you are led to the conclusion, i. e., before you are given a deduction, you should perhaps be said to understand it in one way – but in another way not. If you did not know whether there was such-and-such a thing simpliciter, how could you have known that it had two right angles simpliciter? Yet it is plain that you do understand it in this sense: you understand it universally – but you do not understand it simpliciter (in or by itself, simply, of its own nature, unqualifiedly, unconditionally).” [71a25-31]

The only simple, unconditional knowledge is perception. “Understanding” can have an ‘equivocal’ meaning here. “If you did not know there was such-and-such a thing, how could you have known it had two right angles?” You know something is when you’ve seen it. “You understand it in this sense – simply as ‘seen’, as simpliciter.” But “understanding” is of principles, i. e., “that it had two right angles.” “What is absurd is . . . that you should know it in this way (as if pointing wordlessly because no word is appropriate), i. e., in the way and in the sense in which you are learning it, that is, confusing the unique ‘seen’ with the comparisons of other perception, that is, ‘learning’.”

Therefore perception always immediately precedes and grounds “understanding” of principles as learned, as a specific, remembered, perceived image. “”Thinking and understanding are regarded as akin to a form of perceiving.” [427a20] “Actual knowledge is identical with its object”. [431a1] “The soul never thinks without an image.” [431a17] Principles come from demonstrations. [100b9-10] Understanding has nothing to do with understanding principles per se! [100b11] Since of “always true” “intellectual states” [100b6-8] there is only ‘comprehension or nous besides “understanding”, then “there is comprehension (not understanding) of the principles” [100b14] “If we have no other ‘always true’ kind apart of learning from understanding, comprehension will be the principle of understanding. And comprehension as principle of demonstration [100b9] will relate to the principle of understanding as understanding as a whole is related to its object as a whole.” [100b14-17]

Gary C. Moore wrote:

ANTHONY CRIFASI-4: If you mean that sensation is 'implicitly' (i. e., non explicitly) universal, then this is no different from the medieval interpretation of Aristotle, nor from what I am saying. For example, Aquinas comments on Aristotle that sensations are potentially intelligible. So that would simply be what you call the 'traditional' interpretation of Aristotle.

GARY C MOORE-4: First of all (I thought I had made it clear), you are commenting upon Barnes' commentary. Secondly, whether one says "explicitly" or "implicitly" sensation is intelligible is a mere contest of empty words. Sensations are sensations, unless you are going to say they are communicating secret messages to you. Of course, sensations can never "explicitly" communicate universals to you. First of all that would assume an external world outside your mind has already been proven to exist, which has not happened. Second, that would assume that sensations are intelligent beings able to "explicitly" communicate universals to you. I do not think you mean either. Of course, it always has to be "implicitly", and, unless you assume some form of communication, the whole process has to be in the individual mind. And if it is in the individual mind, universals have only two ways to logically exist - either as innate ideas (which would mean you have another, other mind within your mind since obviously they are not "my" ideas in any sense) or imagined out of sensational elements and comparisons. There are no other alternatives.

Aristotle explicitly distinguishes nous from the faculty of imagination, so he obviously does not think that univesals are "imagined out of sensational elements and comparisons." So since he also rejects innate ideas, he obviously believes that there is a third alternative.

GARY C MOORE-4: If nous as intuition merely compares sensations and imagines a fallible likeness that may well change with future experience, then this is merely a physiological "capacity". If it takes raw sense impressions, compares them, and imagines a likeness, this "likeness" must be tested for self-consistency in further sense experience. As one species of animal physiologically differs from another species of animal, and each has their own function and niche for living through their physiological features and therefore different abilities (therefore we do not have to 'assume' different physiological intellectual capacities 'within' their 'minds' which we can know nothing about except through purely external observation), so "intuition" is going to function in a different fashion for each of them. For instance, a snake is not going to be intuiting in terms of "grasping" as in "hexein". And since I am just saying that intuition is simply an ability to compare sensations and imagine a common denominator that might "work" or not "work" in practice, this might well be due to the simian feature of having hands and comparing what is in the left hand with what is in the right hand, to be simplistic, and one sees this is 'like' or 'unlike' that, i. e "the ability to differentiate them - else sensation would be useless" as you said.

If the produce of nous is merely a "fallible likeness," which may "work" or not "work" in practice, then how do you reconcile that with Aristotle's statement at 100b8 that nous is always true?

"Nous" puts sensations together that fit together. It puts apple with apple instead of apple with horse. It is "reducible", or better, "grounded" as Aristotle is describing the creation of a universal from sense impressions "taking a stand" and uniting through the capacity to recognize likeness through memory. Aristotle calls this "accounting."

ANTHONY CRIFASI-4: Not just any likenesses, but specifically universals. Remember that for Aristotle, all animals have sensations (and therefore can perceive likenesses and differences among them), but not all animals have nous.

GARY C MOORE-4: Likeness ARE universals. They going through a process of testing from being initially imagined as "primitive universals", the likeness first notice as "unique" and therefore a "type" to be compared to other experience that is then criticized as to its "likeness" fitting the experience of similar perceptions and seeing if the likeness is consistent with further experience. Saying "not all animals have nous" is an unverifiable and ambiguous statement even for Aristotle. As far as Aristotle can tell, an animal only "seems" not to have nous or "sweems" not to have memory because of observation of behavior.

Aristotle explicitly says that there is a difference between animals which can form an account and those which cannot (100a8). In fact, he even says that some animals have memory while others do not (99b37), and memory is a necessary condition for nous. In neither of those lines does he say that this "seems" to be the case.

ANTHONTY CRIFASI-4: Saying that an impression must be accompanied with imagination, feeling, and temporality is different from saying that it must be accompanied by 'universality' (by the recognition of universality in nous). Aristotle may have held that sensation must be accompanied by the former, but not the latter.

GARY C MOORE-4: I don't seem to remember saying, "accompanied". Saying that an impression is differentiated, made into a uniqueness that gains one's attention because it is painful or tastes good, etc., and therefore, as a "type" becoming comparable to other impressions to present a likeness, is simply differentiating from the undifferentiated. The sensation of pain emphatically does this. It catches your attention and impulsively you look for a 'this' as cause. You have an "impression", you have "imagination, feeling, and temporality", and you compare the situation to other situations possibility like it, very likely instantaneously because very few situations will be equally emphatic and similar. "Likeness" is sufficient for the meaning of "universality". You don't need anything more. "likeness" is the simplest term covering the result of the whole process according to Ockham's razor. The use of "universal" as something more or other than simple "likeness" either needs much more explanation to justify it, as well as calling intuition "nous" as if something more than simple perception and comparison were implied, or it is a mystical apparition. I do not think Aristotle really implied a "more" than experience and its interpretation through comparison.

He must have implied that, since he says that more animals have aisthesis
(and therefore the ability to differentiate sensations) than have nous. In other words, for Aristotle, there is a difference between an ACCIDENTAL likeness (such as a similar color or shape) and a sameness in ESSENCE (such as two people as people). A perception of the former does not necessarily imply a recognition of the latter.

ANTHONY CRIFASI-4: According to Aristotle, there doesn't have to be a universal at all for there to be sensation and memory, since he says that more animals have sensation and memory than have nous.

GARY C MOORE-4: What possible use, then, would there be for memory if there was no comparison?

I agree, but there is a difference between a comparison of things through their accidents and a comparison of things through their essence. The former does not necessarily imply the latter.

I can reasonably conceive a greater or lesser ability of comparison as well as a greater and lesser ability of memory - of which Aristotle says some animals have none - but I find the later is nonsense, and the having of memory but not the ability at any level whatsoever to compare experience remembered, even if Aristotle or anyone else said it, nonsense. Even for a planarian, this would very quickly lead to extinction. But it has been experimentally demonstrated that a planarian can learn to avoid painful experiences. Therefore a planarian MUST have memory and it MUST use that memory to compare experiences.

I agree, but I don't think Aristotle does. As you point out, he very clearly says that some animals do not have memory, in which case they would not be able to learn.

Anthony Crifasi