phi201 - week 8 - lect 2

Phi 201 Wk 8 Lec 2 Boethius: "The deeper Questions"

From Boethius "Commentary on Porphyry". He seems to outline an Aristotelian picture. He explains that this is not exactly his own view. See quote 3, wk 7 handout.

Structure: begins with a devils advocate argument against the reality of species and genus. This devils advocate argument takes the form of a dilemma. He then presents an Aristotelian picture as a resolution of the dilemma and responds to objections.

Boethius' own picture is much more Platonistic and is described in his other works (including Theological Tractates)

Boethius describes the Aristotelian picture he presents as long the lines of "alexander":

Alexander of Aphrodisius, commentator on and reviver of Aristotle's work, Taught between 98-111 A.D


Devil's Advocate Dilemma

Suppose species and genera are real and not just concepts then each psecies or genera is either one thing or many things.

But either way is unsatisfactor if the species or genus in question, e.g cathood, is one thing, then it must be a universal, common to all cats. See quote 4. Here he says that if "what is common", i.e a species or genus, is one in number itself, it must be present in many items (e.g cats) as a whole and at the same time. That would make it a universal in the sense we describes last year, the modern sense. The argument he presents says that's impossible. Why? He says there are many ways in which a simple thing can be possessed in common by many. But none fit the way in which a species or genus would have to be possessed. See Quote 5. The argument says that there are entities possessed in common but not as a whole, possessed in common as a whole but not simultaneously, and possessed in common, as a whole, and simultaneously, but not so as to form part of the substance of the things it's common to. And he says, the substance requirement is one that we must impose on species and genera. So none of the ways in which a single thing can be possessed in common the way in which species would of have to be common.

It's hard to make entirely clear sense of what it is to constitute part of an individual substance, as opposed to merely being an essential quality. So modern theories tend not to mention the requirement that species must form the part of substance. Moderns' can rest easy because they don't assume that species and genera constitute substance if they did, they might have a problem.

Nonetheless, we can see what intuitively Boethius is trying to get at. Sure, a father can be possessed in common essentially as a whole, and simultaneously by two siblings, but he doesn't constitute their substance. Anything that is common to many so as to constitute it's substance, as Boethius says species and genera must, cannot be one, i.e must itself be many.

So why can't species be many? - second point of the dilemma

Quote 6: Not so much an argument as an assertion.
Recall Platinus

Also an argument. Suppose the species cathood is plurality. This means, presumably, that every cat has a different cathood. But if we invoke cathood to explain what cats have in common, we must know that cathoods all have something in common, cathoodissity. But that must itself be a plurality. Different cathoods have different cathoodissities .... infinite regress. So species and genera could be pluralities either.

That is our dilemma.