Intuition in Aristotle

TY - CHAP

T1 - Intuition in Aristotle

AU - Bolton, Robert

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © Cambridge University Press 2014.

PY - 2014/1/1

Y1 - 2014/1/1

N2 - Intuition in Aristotelian Science Much of the later philosophical interest in intuition as a power for reaching direct epistemically self-warranting belief and knowledge derives originally from Aristotle, or at least from traditional interpretations of Aristotle. His Analytics has served as a primary source for the attribution of such a conception of intuition to him. The final chapter of that work, Posterior Analytics II.19, moves to its conclusion with an argument that W. D. Ross construes, in a traditional way, as follows: Now (a) of the thinking states by which we grasp truth some (science [epistêmê] and intuitive reason [nous]) are always true… and no state is superior to science except intuitive reason; and (b) the first principles are more knowable than the conclusions from them, and all science involves [i.e., comes as the result of] the drawing of conclusions [from first principles]. From (b) it follows that it is not science that grasps the first principles; and then from (a) it follows that it must be intuitive reason that does so… [since] intuitive reason is the only necessarily true state other than science.(100b 5ff)Here Ross directly follows Aristotle, both in confining strict epistêmê (translated here by Ross as “science”) to knowledge or grasp of conclusions demonstrated from principles (as at APo I.2 71b9ff), and also in inferring that it cannot then be epistêmê but only nous by or in which the first principles of a science are grasped (as at II.19 100b 12). So much has always been uncontroversial. But is Ross right to follow tradition in translating Aristotle’s term nous here as “intuitive reason” so that, for Aristotle, principles must be known directly by exercise of such a faculty? It is, first of all, clear that in other texts the term nous does not have this special sense. In De Anima III.4, for instance, Aristotle says: I call nous that [faculty] by which the soul reasons (dianoeitai) and comes [thereby] to belief. (429a 23.

AB - Intuition in Aristotelian Science Much of the later philosophical interest in intuition as a power for reaching direct epistemically self-warranting belief and knowledge derives originally from Aristotle, or at least from traditional interpretations of Aristotle. His Analytics has served as a primary source for the attribution of such a conception of intuition to him. The final chapter of that work, Posterior Analytics II.19, moves to its conclusion with an argument that W. D. Ross construes, in a traditional way, as follows: Now (a) of the thinking states by which we grasp truth some (science [epistêmê] and intuitive reason [nous]) are always true… and no state is superior to science except intuitive reason; and (b) the first principles are more knowable than the conclusions from them, and all science involves [i.e., comes as the result of] the drawing of conclusions [from first principles]. From (b) it follows that it is not science that grasps the first principles; and then from (a) it follows that it must be intuitive reason that does so… [since] intuitive reason is the only necessarily true state other than science.(100b 5ff)Here Ross directly follows Aristotle, both in confining strict epistêmê (translated here by Ross as “science”) to knowledge or grasp of conclusions demonstrated from principles (as at APo I.2 71b9ff), and also in inferring that it cannot then be epistêmê but only nous by or in which the first principles of a science are grasped (as at II.19 100b 12). So much has always been uncontroversial. But is Ross right to follow tradition in translating Aristotle’s term nous here as “intuitive reason” so that, for Aristotle, principles must be known directly by exercise of such a faculty? It is, first of all, clear that in other texts the term nous does not have this special sense. In De Anima III.4, for instance, Aristotle says: I call nous that [faculty] by which the soul reasons (dianoeitai) and comes [thereby] to belief. (429a 23.

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/84953736478

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/84953736478#tab=citedBy

U2 - 10.1017/CBO9781139136419.003

DO - 10.1017/CBO9781139136419.003

M3 - Chapter

SN - 9781107022393

SP - 39

EP - 54

BT - Rational Intuition

PB - Cambridge University Press

ER -