tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1703983863002652001.post3809349411711318960..comments2024-03-21T08:50:20.533-07:00Comments on Pirates & Revolutionaries: Somers-Hall, (1.4), Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, ‘1.4 Duns Scotus (35–6/44–5, 39–40/48–9)’, summaryCorry Shoreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10021754334885248079noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1703983863002652001.post-41179001537406000772015-04-16T04:11:32.963-07:002015-04-16T04:11:32.963-07:00The point here is that analogy is supposed to expl...The point here is that analogy is supposed to explain how we can say ‘God is good’ for instance – we do so by claiming that we are using such a term by analogy with the goodness of a finite being. To make the analogy work, we would seem to need to still know something about how God’s attributes relate to his nature. ‘Goodness relates to God’s nature analogously to how Goodness relates to our nature’ doesn’t tell us much unless we have a general idea of how attributes relate to God’s nature.<br /><br />*[But by making the meaning of being dependent on whether or not it is finite or infinite, we seem to be placing it as a higher genus. Thereby, we make it higher in the hierarchy than God. Moreover, now that God is lower than being, we would say that ‘being’ is a predicate to God, in the sense of the sentence: God is a being / God has being / God is. So being is one of God’s attributes. Also, as we noted, God is not finite, so he also has infinitude as one of his attributes (but it is not clear to me if ‘infinite’ is a higher genus).]<br /><br />The highest genus here would be ‘being’. The specific difference would be finitude/infinitude, and the species would be ‘infinite being’ (God) and ‘finite being’ (everything else). Hence, God would no longer be the highest term/principle.<br /><br />* [The reasoning in the next part is not entirely clear to me. It seems that because infinite and finite are relational concepts, with each co-defining the other, and because they are opposed, then the being must be the highest genus. Perhaps this is because neither one can be said to be higher than the other, but both can be said to have being.]<br /><br />The point here is that the finite and the infinite are here defined in relation to one another (the point about matter isn’t too relevant here). Aquinas sees the finite and the infinite as terms opposed to one another, and consequently as terms that are related to one another (in the same way that P and –P are related to one another). By seeing finite and infinite as opposites in this way (limited and not limited), it means that he is forced to see them as differentiae of a genus. Scotus’ point really is that if we think finitude and infinitude differently (And outside of opposition), we may be able to avoid having to think of them as specific differences (hence we move to a radically non-Aristotelian model of determination).<br /><br />Intensity and whiteness<br /><br />The example Scotus uses here is limited – his point isn’t so much about what happens when we look at a range of intensities of whiteness, though, but just that there are lots of different things that we can see which are white. In saying ‘this is white’, however, we are only making a formal determination, because whiteness will always have a particular shade. Another way of looking at this would be to turn to Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry. In Euclidean geometry, we have a plane, and then determinations are placed on the plane – We might demarcate an area on a wall by drawing a shape on it. This demarcation is an addition to the plane itself. The alternative way of understanding the determination of a plane is to see the plane itself as not homogeneous, but as containing different hills and valleys (a Riemannian space). In such a case, we could talk about the plane without mentioning the curvature, but this would be an abstract way of doing so, because the curvature is intrinsic to the plane in a way that the shape drawn on the wall was not. Scotus’ point would then be that God would be like a point of infinite height on the plane which was formally just a point on the plane like any other, but really different in kind. I hope that helps, but this is a very difficult concept to explain clearly.<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03915873209145833701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1703983863002652001.post-29748005195835559762015-04-16T04:11:05.096-07:002015-04-16T04:11:05.096-07:00*[Recall that paronymous meanings refer to a focal...*[Recall that paronymous meanings refer to a focal meaning. SH refers again to this notion of focal meaning, but now in the context of analogy. (It is not clear to me if paronymous meanings are analogous.) Analogy here is matter of likeness. For Aquinas, if one cause causes two equivocal things, then they are analogous. Thus on the basis of finite good, we can understand by analogy God’s goodness, since God caused both.]<br /><br />Yes, in fact, if I recall correctly, the philosophical meanings of univocity and analogy derive from Boethius’ translations into Latin of the terms homonymy and paronymy.<br /><br />*[We now get Scotus’ definition of univocity. But we do not get an example but rather only a counter example, so it as of now a little unclear to me.]<br /><br />Here’s a fuller account of the definition (but still negative):<br /><br />I designate that concept univocal which possesses sufficient unity in itself, so that to affirm or deny it of one and the same thing would be a contradiction. It also has sufficient unity to serve as the middle term of a syllogism, so that wherever two extremes are united by a middle term that is one in this way, we may conclude to the union of the two extremes among themselves. (Scotus, Philosophical Writings, 20)<br />To take an example of the first of these criteria, for Aquinas, it is clear that ‘good’ can be predicated and not predicated of a man at the same time, insofar as good can refer to finite and infinite goodness. The second criterion asserts that a univocal term can be used to make inferences. The fact that a feather is light (as in weight) does not entail that it is not dark (as in colour). The reason why we cannot make the inference in this case is because ‘light’ is being used equivocally. Essentially, therefore, a univocal term is one that has a single meaning – the kind of simple clear and distinct meaning Leibniz was looking for with his Characteristica universalis. <br /><br />*There are two basic reasons Scotus thinks that ‘being’ has this sort of univocity. 1) [In the analogical account of knowledge of God, it might be implied that in order to know that God exists, we might need to see some kind of causal proof of his existence in the world. However,] “we can believe that God exists without knowing anything further about him, even whether he is finite or infinite” (31).<br /><br />The point is more that on the analogical conception, there really is no single concept of being – rather, being is a combination of two concepts – infinite being and finite being. There’s an ambiguity in the statement, God exists, therefore, in that we could mean ‘God exists-finitely’ or ‘God exists-infinitely’. Scotus’ move to a univocal conception of being means that we can talk about being without ambiguity (of course, God must in fact exist finitely or infinitely, but these are further specifications, rather than internal to the concept of being itself [though for Scotus, to avoid heresy, in fact the concept of being is purely formal]).<br /><br />* “Second, the alternative theory of analogy suffers from a key problem: in order for the analogy to work, we seem to require some knowledge of the relationship between God’s nature and his attributes. Such an analogical argument presupposes some form of understanding of God’s nature” (31d).<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03915873209145833701noreply@blogger.com