Rethink.

Translations of quoted material below and citations are from/of Joe Sachs’ translation, published by Focus, 2002. The essay is as difficult as it gets and is highly, highly speculative.

1. Background: The Audience of the Ethics

Aristotle begins by saying he wants to “examine the universal good and go through the difficulties in the way it is spoken of,” but that such a task is very difficult: “the men who introduced the forms were my friends” (1096a 12-15).

Notice that he does not say “the forms are an incorrect way of conceiving the universal good.” He says this is an inquiry he must make for the sake of the truth, that he must go beyond love of one’s own, and that this whole ordeal is sacred.

Now at the end of Chapter 3, Aristotle said a curious thing: “About the one who is to hear this discourse, and how it ought to be received, and what task we have set before ourselves, let these things serve as a prelude.” It is a curious thing because Aristotle did not explicitly say who his audience was in anything before – he didn’t say, for example, “this book is for Glaucon,” and he only talked in the most general terms of the mindset people have when approaching the question of the good. Of that mindset, we can pick out 3 sorts:

1. Those who are more philosophic and can handle abstract inquiry (chapter 1). They are curious about the relation between knowledge and action, and how exactly it is knowledge governs action when ends are divergent: does a formal principle tell us when an end is better than another?
2. Those who use knowledge for the sake of action. They need to be reminded that desires do have an end (1094a 20-21), and their mode of approaching the good conflates the highest and the human good (1094a 23, compare with 1093b 6-7). Nonetheless, they introduce us to politics, which is critical to any discussion of knowledge and action.
3. Those who are impulsive: to be too impulsive is to be “young” and “inexperienced” and needing knowledge badly.

Aristotle’s audience is threefold, and each party is defined by the role they give knowledge – too high a role, too low a role, and way too low a role. Notice that this corresponds to something that Socrates or Plato might discuss: the tripartite soul, in its rational, spirited and appetitive components.

With the tripartite soul lurking in the background, I find it really difficult to believe that Aristotle is rejecting Platonic forms outright. In fact, my suspicion is that if anything, Chapter 6 read correctly will be insight into Platonic forms on a much higher level than anyone who sees it merely as criticism could have. After all, Aristotle has thrown aside love of “one’s own” in order to bring up the topic – when one’s friends are philosophers, there is no greater display of friendship.

2. Primary and derivative instances

Now those who brought in this opinion did not make forms within which a primary and derivative instance were spoken of (which is why they did not construct a form of number), but the good is attributed to what something is and also to the sort of thing it is and to a relation it has, while the thinghood of something, which is something on its own, by nature has priority over a relation it has (for this is like an offshoot and incidental attribute of what it is), so that there could be any form common to these (1096a 17-24).

This sentence makes my head spin. Let’s go through it step-by-step.

We have primary and derivative instances, and “number” is an example of these, Aristotle claims. On its own, we might say that primary and derivative instances are like God giving form to man in His image and likeness. And indeed, there is probably an implication of perfect/imperfect hiding in this distinction.

However, if there is, Aristotle wants us to be really specific as to what might make something perfect or imperfect – that example of “number” is not there for no reason. Jacob Klein once mentioned that a major problem the Greeks had with number is how they could be unities and diversities at once. Every number is in a sense “one,” since the use of say, 6, involves grouping 6 things under one concept.

If we take the problem of number to be how unity and diversity reconcile, then it might seem that Platonic forms are a great candidate for explaining how this might work.

Aristotle goes on to say the forms are very specific: “good” lies in “what something is,” “the sort of thing it is,” and “the relation it has,” the “thinghood” having priority over the “relation.” In the Republic, 510d5 – e4, Socrates says the following (Bloom’s translation follows):

Don’t you also know that they [geometers] use visible form besides and make their arguments about them, not thinking about them but about those others that they are like? They make the arguments for the sake of the square itself and the diagonal itself, not for the sake of the diagonal they draw, and likewise with the rest. These things themselves that they mold and draw, of which there are shadows and images in water, they now use as images, seeking to see those things themselves, that one can see in no other way than with thought.

Now that passage talks about the forms in terms of geometry, where ideal objects are realized through thought. The relations enable one to get a grasp on what is higher. Notice that this seems very much like derivative instances feeding into a notion of primary instances, despite all the specifics given.

However, in the Republic, the geometers are just the start of the story. The geometers almost pull from forms to make everyday objects intelligible; some others jump from hypothesis to form through dialectic, and then from form to form (Republic 511b-c). The geometers use hypotheses as a beginning that stays a beginning; Socrates posits one who uses them as a “springboard” in order to literally speculate about the origins of things.

The big question is whether the logic of primary and derivative instances is separable from the logic underlying “thinghood” (what it is/of what sort) and “relation.” I don’t think such a logic is separable from those more specific things, and notice that “good” is allied with “thinghood” in such a way that Aristotle seems to be saying the primary/derivative logic is the logic of the forms.

So why is he so convoluted about this issue? Why doesn’t he just say “I agree with Socrates” instead of running headfirst into the one of the most complicated lines of thought there are?

3. Being and the good

In the next two phases of his argument, Aristotle gets slippery again. In speaking of the fact that “good” and “being” are meant in many ways, he uses the categories – ways of being – to demonstrate an inviolable link with the good (i.e. “of what sort” points to the “excellences,” “virtues;” the good as “what something is” would be “god” or the “intellect;” questions of amount would point to what “limit;” “relation” makes us wonder about “usefulness,” “time” speaks of “opportunity,” and “place” brings up “dwelling,” which I will refer you to Heidegger to consider). Now he seemingly keeps the scope of being wider than the good, and the good seems to be only one facet of being. Still, since all our opinions about the good seem to derive from being – notice that we don’t agree on the gods, or what intellectual truth is, or what is useful, etc. – there is a sense in which “good = being” here. He cleverly loads this argument like so, and then says “well, there are lots of ways of attributing being to the good, so there is no universal common good.”

Finally, he says that there is one sort of knowledge per form. Therefore, knowledge is linked to a diversity of goods that can’t be reconciled under one form. Also, to try and describe the definition of something as having eternality by saying “whatever-itself” versus “whatever” contributes nothing to the discussion of the good.

It’s obvious Aristotle is lying here, too. The discussion in the Republic shows that “forms” are heading to a realm where oneness is possible and diversity is explanatory. Why is Aristotle so insistent on confusing us, then?

4. The common understanding

The issue is not Aristotle’s understanding but everyone else’s. People get satisfied with stuff, and they want to 1. preserve the stuff itself or 2. preserve the stuff making the stuff or 3. stop the opposite from happening.

The issue, then, is that we react instinctively, that thought and action are fused to the detriment of thought, and that appeal to reflecting on a highest of goods isn’t going to work for this inquiry. Furthermore, we label whatever we perceive this instinctive reaction as directed towards a “form” of the “good.” “Pleasures” and “honors” both end up being considered by people as good in-and-of themselves because we don’t have as high a conception of “primary and derivative” as the conception regarding number. Rather, our conception of “primary” is “I have it, right?” and “derivative” is exactly “well, this is how I’m going to get/keep it” (1096b 10 and onward). The joke is that our lack of understanding shows itself in our tendency for the purely “formal:” pleasures and honors are not means to ends, and therefore are good in-and-of themselves? The talk about forms is too high for a discussion oriented towards everyone.

So in the end, Aristotle is going to use the more primitive primary/derivative “understanding” to discuss the good. There is no real argument with the forms: he is being confusing, I think, in order to highlight some of the strengths of the Socratic teaching. Those strengths involve an attempt to be absolutely clear why one thing is “derivative” of another and whether that is a bad thing. They also show that being relates to the good through opinion, and that all being can be seen as derivative of the quest for the good. Finally, the forms do take into account a rich diversity, starting with particular arts and goods and transcending them in order to aim at a master art whereby man can be governed/govern himself for higher ends.

• Not a good day, or a brief comment on Memorabilia IV.2.24-29
• How do Knowledge and Virtue Relate? On Aristotle’s Ethics, Bk. 2 Chp. 4
• Do Money and Material Gain Taint Thought, or Validity of Opinion? On Aristotle’s Ethics, Bk. 2 Chp. 7
• On the Nature of Teaching: Regarding Three Aphorisms from Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil
• Comments on Excerpts from Kierkegaard’s “Every Good and Every Perfect Gift is from Above”

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