Dissertation anonymus sources

Dissertation anonymus sources

Aug 12,  · 1. Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. A demonstration in Aristotle is a syllogism that produces scientific knowledge. Scientific knowledge is knowledge not simply that something is the case, but why it is the case, what causes bring it about. Perhaps we would Libros PDF. 4, likes · 2 talking about this. Download free books in PDF format. Read online books for free new release and bestseller Benjamin Franklin FRS FRSA FRSE (January 17, [O.S. January 6, ] – April 17, ) was an American polymath active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher and political philosopher. Among the leading intellectuals of his time, Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and the first United States Postmaster General

Medieval Theories of Demonstration (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

In the Middle Ages, the theory of demonstration, developing the theory found in Aristotle's Posterior Analyticswas considered the culmination of logic, bringing all the other parts of the discipline to bear on the task of developing scientific knowledge.

Elaborated largely in commentaries and discussions of the Posterior Analytics itself, but also sometimes in independent opuscula on specific problems, or in discussions of the knowledge of God in commentaries to the prologue of the Sentences, this body of philosophical literature corresponds to modern Philosophy of Science.

In particular, the problems how we come to know causal laws, how scientific knowledge differs from other sorts of cognition, how mathematical knowledge differs from other sorts of scientific knowledge, and why mathematical knowledge is more certain, are explored in this literature.

Although the discussion followed Aristotle's views closely, each interpreter read his views in a way that would square them with his own metaphysical system, so that the most important Aristotelian writers of the thirteenth century, dissertation anonymus sources, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, and Giles of Rome, revised the initial, Augustinian, reading of Robert Grosseteste's commentary.

These disputes were rooted in part in earlier disputes among the Arabic commentators, as reported in Averroes's commentaries.

Ockham and his followers developed yet another reading of the science of demonstrations to fit their nominalist metaphysics in the fourteenth century, and in the later Middle Ages their views and dissertation anonymus sources of Aquinas dominated the scene. In later Terminist commentaries, such as that of Antony Coronel init is assumed that scientific knowledge is a natural form caused in the mind by knowledge of the premisses of a demonstration, and it is treated as a subject of puzzles concerning beginning and ceasing, and the like, typical of the sophismata discussed in that school.

Moreover, dissertation anonymus sources, though the theory disappeared, much of the new Empiricist viewpoint in fact carries over from the Ockhamist version of it. A demonstration in Aristotle is a syllogism that produces scientific knowledge. Scientific knowledge is knowledge not simply that something is the case, but why it is the case, what causes bring it about.

Perhaps we would do better to call it a scientific understanding of the fact known. This means that one may have cognition that something is true which is quite certain without having scientific knowledge, and Aristotle's Posterior Analytics is not a treatise on what we might nowadays call general epistemology. To produce dissertation anonymus sources transmit scientific understanding, Aristotle thought we had to duplicate, in the deductive order of the science, the order of causes found in reality, dissertation anonymus sources.

Just as the dissertation anonymus sources can be traced back to first causes rooted in the nature of the thing known, so the science must arise from first principles associated with the real definition of the thing known expressing its nature.

It is notorious that Aristotle's syllogistic dissertation anonymus sources cannot capture the logic of relations, and so is inadequate to the task of presenting the deductive structure of mathematics. This difficulty was handled in practice by placing the relational arguments outside the formal structure of syllogistic which formed the framework of a science. The principles of a demonstration, Aristotle thought, always had to be universal, reporting, as they do, necessary connections.

Posterior Analytics I 4, 73ba4 clearly sets out the dissertation anonymus sources. A first principle must be not just universally quantified, but commensurately universal, so that the predicate belongs to the subject in every case, and belongs to whatever else it belongs to because it belongs to that subject, and because whatever else it belongs to, essentially or accidentally, falls under that subject.

Aristotle does not lay down tight rules for discovering first principles, though he points out that one needs a good deal of experience of the subject, and that if we possess the first principles they will explain why the subject has the attributes it does. His book proceeds by explaining the logical form into which a science must be put if it is to be transmitted to an ideal student.

He takes the mathematics of his time to be the paradigmatic science. The principles of a demonstration must be true, indemonstrable, and such as to provide the reason for the truth of the conclusion, but they must also be necessary and per se PA I 2.

The middle term of a demonstration must express the cause why the predicate of the conclusion belongs to its subject. It was disputed in the Middle Ages whether the middle term in the highest sort of demonstration would be the real definition of the subject, or the dissertation anonymus sources definition of the attribute, or somehow include both, dissertation anonymus sources, but it was generally agreed that it would be a real definition, and that one of the premisses of a demonstration would express a necessary truth not derivable by a simple analysis of either the nominal or the real definition of its subject.

The central text here, and that a very difficult one suggesting a number of different possible lines of analysis, is PA II Various sorts of demonstration falling short of this ideal model, because they do not give a full explanation of the cause why the fact is true, were dissertation anonymus sources in Aristotle's text PA I 13and the medieval authors refer to these as demonstration that it is the case quia as opposed to demonstration why it is the case propter quid.

Most important here is the sort of demonstration which argues from the cause to the effect rather than effect to cause, dissertation anonymus sources, for instance, the demonstration that stars, unlike the planets, are far away because they twinkle, and whatever twinkles is far away. Twinkling, of course, does not cause the stars to be far away, but rather, the distance causes the twinkling.

This sort of demonstration plays a role in discussions of analysis and synthesis in the fifteenth century. Dissertation anonymus sources concerning particulars, and demonstrations arguing from theorems in the science which are not traced back to first principles, are also demonstrations that it is the case. Another important case is that in which principles are imported from another science to complete a demonstration.

So if one proves that circular wounds heal more slowly because they have a large ratio of area to circumference, and healing proceeds at the edge of a wound, one has borrowed, dissertation anonymus sources, in medicine, a principle from geometry.

The physician qua physician need not know this principle that is, dissertation anonymus sources need not know the reason why it is so, so that he is able to prove itbut may rely on the authority of the geometer without being open to criticism as a physician.

Although Boethius reports a translation of Themistius's paraphrase of the Posterior Analytics into Latin, and may have done a translation himself, neither of dissertation anonymus sources works survived into the Middle Ages. The Latins first became acquainted with the work through the translation of James of Venice between and John of Salisbury benefits from James in his Metalogicongiving a list of points from the work there Book IV The James translation became the vulgate, dissertation anonymus sources, and the translation done for Thomas Aquinas by William Moerbeke never received much usage.

Translations of Themistius's paraphrase of the work, and a lost work by al-Farabi on demonstration or perhaps Averroes's critical remarks on that workdissertation anonymus sources used by Albert the Great, and though they dropped out of circulation soon thereafter, scholars sometimes cribbed from Albert's commentary.

The commentary of Alexander of Aphrodisias or the commentary of Philoponus, which is dissertation anonymus sources to Alexander was translated by James of Venice.

This translation also quickly dropped out of circulation, but much of its content survived in marginal glosses. The Middle Commentary of Averroes was translated by William of Luna aroundbut was not used before the latter half of the fifteenth century, though Albert the Great seems to have some knowledge of Averroes, and so his doctrines were dissertation anonymus sources without influence. The Posterior Analytics was little known in the twelfth century, despite James of Venice's translation, then.

Though earlier discussions are to be noted, dissertation anonymus sources, such as that of Richard Rufus see Rega Woodthe work first enters into the Western tradition in a serious way in dissertation anonymus sources commentary of Robert Grossetestewritten around Grosseteste applies the theory in the Posterior Analytics to itself, dissertation anonymus sources, presenting it as a demonstrative science of demonstration.

Thus he suggests that Aristotle first gives a definition of demonstration, a syllogism producing scientific knowledge, and a definition of scientific knowledge, and then, in a series of syllogisms, deduces the properties that a demonstration must have, first considered in itself as a free-standing syllogism, then considered in relation to other demonstrations, and finally considered as it is part of a science.

The second book of the work, he claims, discusses the art of definition as the way to discover demonstrations, and how it is that definition occurs as the middle term and the cause of the truth of the conclusion, in a demonstration.

He finds thirty-two scientific conclusions in each of the two books, and his list of conclusions forms the standard summary of the work for many later writers. This analysis is most plausible in the beginning of Book I, and the initially structured presentation degenerates to a mere list of points made, often with little evident deductive structure, in the discussion of the latter part of Book I and in Book II. Many portions of the book are treated, plausibly enough, as ancillary to the deductive science, concerned, for instance, with disproving common errors.

Before Grosseteste, Aristotle's text was considered very difficult, both in doctrine and in language, and it seems to have caused some concern dissertation anonymus sources of its apparent disagreement with the dominant Augustinian theory of knowledge, dissertation anonymus sources.

Grosseteste not only explained the book clearly, but also reconciled it with Augustine by treating demonstration as the means by which a fallen humanity must come to knowledge of the world. Augustine's Neoplatonic account of knowledge is reserved for our restored or supernaturally assisted nature in its contemplation of God, or of the natural world in God. No doubt, Grosseteste's position as a well-known and conservative Bishop helped to legitimize the science of demonstration for his more conservative readers.

Grosseteste suggests that if the mind were healthy, dissertation anonymus sources, dissertation anonymus sources unaffected by the Fall, it would be able to see in God the exemplary forms of all the things he had created.

But as it is, such knowledge of exemplary forms is impossible, though the light of God illumines the forms of particular things that we encounter in the world so that we can come to know them, dissertation anonymus sources. Such forms are in themselves universal and unchanging indeed, in themselves they are the same as, though not numerically identical with, exemplary formsand so they can ground necessary truths. But the knowledge of a real definition of a substance, of a simple form, does not impart knowledge of its causal powers.

Ockham, it will be noted, shares this view. For instance, the knowledge of the causal power of scammony to purge red bile arises only after we observe a number of cases where it does this, and so come to form an aestimatio that it does in this or that particular case. An aestimatio is produced in the senses, and can be formed by irrational animals.

It is a kind of perception of a particular causal conneciton, and is not necessarily correct. The idea dissertation anonymus sources to have come from Augustine, De Libero Arbitrio II.

Then, spurred on by this aestimatioreason proposes an experiment, and introduces scammony when every other cause for the purging of red bile is absent, and if it often draws out red bile under these conditions, reason concludes that it is a causal power of scammony to do this.

The intellect's ability to frame a universal concept after it becomes familiar with particular individuals through the senses dissertation anonymus sources paralleled by its ability to form universal causal judgments after sensory dissertation anonymus sources informs it of particular dissertation anonymus sources events.

Grosseteste I dissertation anonymus sources, lines This knowledge of causal laws is knowledge of what a given agent is suited to do, but it is knowledge of what it will actually do only for the most part.

This is not knowledge of what it will do most of the time, or even frequently, but of what it will do of itself as long as nothing is present to prevent it from doing it. The formal definition tells us what the exemplary form is, while the material definition specifies how that form and its causal activity are actually realized in matter.

From Aquinas on people were aware of this error in the translation. Knowledge of mathematical truth occurs without any efficient or final cause in the picture, and we can see triangles, for instance, dissertation anonymus sources, as they really are in themselves with a direct mental view, rather than attempting to reconstruct them, as we do in the case of thunder, dissertation anonymus sources, for instance, where we know that some physical arrangement is producing a noise has that as its function, as it werebut cannot view that physical arrangement directly.

Thus mathematical demonstrations are higher potior than natural demonstrations, since what they show is always the case, and they are more easily known. Grosseteste I 18, lines How can there be knowledge of, dissertation anonymus sources, and necessary truths about, what, most of the time, does not even exist?

One science can be subalternate to another, according to Grosseteste, in several ways. In one, a science, dissertation anonymus sources, say Music, the dissertation anonymus sources of audible proportion, falls under another, in this case the science of proportion, but it is not a part of that science, since audibility is an accident of proportion, not a difference which establishes some species of it.

Arithmetical and geometrical proportion, for instance, are species of proportion, and so the science of arithmetical or geometrical proportion would dissertation anonymus sources a part of the science of proportion, not subalternate to it. He says in this case that the one science falls under the other univocally, since both are said to deal with proportion. Now audible proportion may be no more than an accidental unity, but it is still the case, dissertation anonymus sources, Grosseteste holds, that proportion is a necessary formal part of the real nature of dissertation anonymus sources, just as its audibility is.

So the subject of music, harmony, is, as it were, proportion realized in a certain matter, just as the actual material constitution of dissertation anonymus sources natural object is the realization of some higher form, dissertation anonymus sources, say that of an animal, the nature of whose functioning can be understood quite independently of the realization of it in that particular matter. Grosseteste sees subalternation as a phenomenon revealing a deep metaphysical truth, the truth that a natural material object is always the realization in matter of some higher form that is what it is quite independently of that realization.

So he does not consider the case of the circular wound as subalternation, for circularity in no way constitutes or realizes the function of a wound.

Medicine is not even in part subalternate to mathematics. Grosseteste I 12, lines In a second case of true subalternation, Grosseteste holds, the science of the parts of a thing, which realize its functioning, dissertation anonymus sources, must be brought into play to understand the thing. So the science of harmony is subalternate to the science of numbers, Arithmetic, for numbers are the parts of proportions, and must be known if proportions are to be known, even if proportions are not numbers in the way that audible proportions are proportions.

This account of subordination was intimately connected with Grosseteste's metaphysics. He thought that the material world arose from light, which propagates itself in a straight line through space, so that matter can only be understood as arising dissertation anonymus sources light in accord with mathematical laws.

Thus natural science will be subalternate to mathematics, for even though mathematics is not the science of the higher form, of light, considered in itself, it does govern the way in which light realizes itself in space. The fact that the science of nature depends on mathematics is a clue that the natural world originates from a higher form in accord with mathematics.

Similarly, a living being comes about when a higher form lends functions of digestion, reproduction, sensation and the like to matter, these functions being accomplished by the causal operations of matter, so that the biological sciences are subalternate to natural science.

Grosseteste identifies two types of demonstration of the highest sort, natural and mathematical. The interpolated text suggests that a formal definition might serve as the middle term in a demonstration, proving the material definition of the subject. For example, one might demonstrate that anger is the boiling of blood around the heart dissertation anonymus sources material definitionby using as the middle term the formal definition of anger, dissertation anonymus sources, the desire to do harm to another.

Of course, one would have to know a first principle asserting that whatever fits the formal definition must realize the functioning it expresses in that material form, and one would have to know what anger really is, in its own proper form. Again, drawing on Aristotle's example in Posterior Analytics II 8, dissertation anonymus sources, thunder is a noise made in a cloud formal definitionand such a noise, in a cloud, is made only when fire is extinguished in it, and so thunder is the extinction of fire in a cloud.

A demonstration of the highest sort in mathematics does not, of course, work out the mechanism by which some function must be accomplished, so in this case the middle term will be the formal definition of the subject, stated in terms of its parts so a definition of a triangle will be in terms of the lines making it up, dissertation anonymus sources, the definition of a number in terms of the dissertation anonymus sources making it up, and so on, dissertation anonymus sources.

The attribute, dissertation anonymus sources, rather than a material definition, will simply be the property proved of the subject. In both dissertation anonymus sources sorts of demonstration, Grosseteste holds, the major premise and conclusion are per se in the second way, that is, the subject is somehow presupposed in their predicates.

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Libros PDF. 4, likes · 2 talking about this. Download free books in PDF format. Read online books for free new release and bestseller Benjamin Franklin FRS FRSA FRSE (January 17, [O.S. January 6, ] – April 17, ) was an American polymath active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher and political philosopher. Among the leading intellectuals of his time, Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and the first United States Postmaster General Aug 12,  · 1. Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. A demonstration in Aristotle is a syllogism that produces scientific knowledge. Scientific knowledge is knowledge not simply that something is the case, but why it is the case, what causes bring it about. Perhaps we would