[Inquiry] Re: Kaina Stoicheia -- Commentary

[Jon Awbrey]

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KS.  Commentary Note 6

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Peirce List,

When Peirce starts talking about Aristotle's concept of entelechy
it brings to mind some of the issues that I was wrestling with in
my work on "Inquiry Driven Systems" or the "Inquiry Into Inquiry",
some of which is recorded at the Arisbe website, and some further
explorations of which are serialized at my Inquiry Archive.  Here
is a pertinent selection:

Cf: IDS 114.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-May/001553.html
Cf: IDS 115.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-May/001554.html
Cf: IDS 116.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-May/001555.html
In: IDS.      http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-May/thread.html#1434

I'll copy this much of it below, as it may do some of us
some good to consider these issues again in this setting.

Jon Awbrey

1.3.9.3.  The Formative Tension

The incidental arena or the informal context is presently described in
casual, derivative, and negative terms, simply as the "not yet formal",
and so this admittedly unruly region is currently depicted in ways that
suggest a purely unformed and a wholly formless chaos, which it is not.
But increasing experience with the formalization process can help one
to develop a better appreciation of the informal context, and in time
one can argue for a more positive characterization of this realm as
a truly "formative context".  The formal domain is where risks are
contemplated, but the formative context is where risks are taken.

In this view, the informal context is more clearly seen as the off-stage
staging ground where everything that appears on the formal scene is first
assembled for a formal presentation.  In taking this view, one steps back
a bit in one's imagination from the scene that presses on one's attention,
gets a sense of its frame and its stage, and becomes accustomed to see what
appears in ever dimmer lights, in effect, one is learning to reflect on the
more obvious actions, to read their pretexts, and to detect the motives that
end in them.

It is fair to assume that an agent of inquiry possesses a faculty of inquiry
that is available for exercise in the informal context, that is, without the
agent being required to formalize its properties prior to their initial use.
If this faculty of inquiry is a unity, then it appears as a whole on both
sides of the "glass", that is, on both sides of the imaginary line that
one pretends to draw between a formal arena and its informal context.

1.3.9.3.  The Formative Tension (cont.)

Recognizing the positive value of an informal context as
an open forum or a formative space, it is possible to form
the alignments of capacities that are indicated in Table 5.

Table 5.  Alignments of Capacities
o-------------------o-----------------------------o
|      Formal       |          Formative          |
o-------------------o-----------------------------o
|     Objective     |        Instrumental         |
|      Passive      |           Active            |
o-------------------o--------------o--------------o
|     Afforded      |  Possessed   |  Exercised   |
o-------------------o--------------o--------------o

This arrangement of capacities, based on the distinction between
possession and exercise that arises so naturally in this context,
stems from a root that is old indeed.  In this connection, it is
instructive to compare these alignments with those that we find
in Aristotle's treatise 'On the Soul', a germinal textbook of
psychology that ventures to analyze the concept of the mind,
psyche, or soul to the point of arriving at a definition.
The alignments of capacites, analogous correspondences,
and illustrative materials outlined by Aristotle are
summarized in Table 6.

Table 6.  Alignments of Capacities in Aristotle
o-------------------o-----------------------------o
|      Matter       |            Form             |
o-------------------o-----------------------------o
|   Potentiality    |          Actuality          |
|    Receptivity    |  Possession  |   Exercise   |
|       Life        |    Sleep     |    Waking    |
|        Wax        |         Impression          |
|        Axe        |    Edge      |   Cutting    |
|        Eye        |   Vision     |    Seeing    |
|       Body        |            Soul             |
o-------------------o-----------------------------o
|       Ship?       |           Sailor?           |
o-------------------o-----------------------------o

An attempt to synthesize the materials and the schemes that are given
in Tables 5 and 6 leads to the alignments of capacities that are shown
in Table 7.  I do not pretend that the resulting alignments are perfect,
since there is clearly some sort of twist taking place between the top
and the bottom of this synthetic arrangement.  Perhaps this is due to
the modifications of case, tense, and grammatical category that occur
throughout the paradigm, or perhaps it has to do with the fact that
the relations through the middle of the Table are more analogical
than categorical.  For the moment I am content to leave all of
these paradoxes intact, taking the pattern of tensions and
torsions as a puzzle for future study.

Table 7.  Synthesis of Alignments
o-------------------o-----------------------------o
|      Formal       |          Formative          |
o-------------------o-----------------------------o
|     Objective     |        Instrumental         |
|      Passive      |           Active            |
|     Afforded      |  Possessed   |  Exercised   |
|      To Hold      |   To Have    |    To Use    |
|    Receptivity    |  Possession  |   Exercise   |
|   Potentiality    |          Actuality          |
|      Matter       |            Form             |
o-------------------o-----------------------------o

1.3.9.3.  The Formative Tension (concl.)

Due to the importance of Aristotle's account for every discussion that
follows it, not to mention for those that follow it without knowing it,
and because the issues that it raises arise repeatedly throughout this
project, I am going to cite an extended extract from the relevant text
(Aristotle, 'Peri Psyche', 2.1), breaking up the argument into a number
of individual premisses, stages, and examples.

Aristotle wrote (W.S. Hett translation):

| a.  The theories of the soul (psyche)
|     handed down by our predecessors have
|     been sufficiently discussed;  now let
|     us start afresh, as it were, and try to
|     determine (diorisai) what the soul is,
|     and what definition (logos) of it will
|     be most comprehensive (koinotatos).
|
| b.  We describe one class of existing things as
|     substance (ousia), and this we subdivide into
|     three:  (1) matter (hyle), which in itself is
|     not an individual thing, (2) shape (morphe) or
|     form (eidos), in virtue of which individuality
|     is directly attributed, and (3) the compound
|     of the two.
| 
| c.  Matter is potentiality (dynamis), while form is
|     realization or actuality (entelecheia), and the
|     word actuality is used in two senses, illustrated
|     by the possession of knowledge (episteme) and the
|     exercise of it (theorein).
|
| d.  Bodies (somata) seem to be pre-eminently
|     substances, and most particularly those
|     which are of natural origin (physica),
|     for these are the sources (archai)
|     from which the rest are derived.
|
| e.  But of natural bodies some have life (zoe)
|     and some have not;  by life we mean the
|     capacity for self-sustenance, growth,
|     and decay.
|
| f.  Every natural body (soma physikon), then,
|     which possesses life must be substance, and
|     substance of the compound type (synthete).
|
| g.  But since it is a body of a definite kind, viz.,
|     having life, the body (soma) cannot be soul (psyche),
|     for the body is not something predicated of a subject,
|     but rather is itself to be regarded as a subject,
|     i.e., as matter.
|
| h.  So the soul must be substance in the sense of being
|     the form of a natural body, which potentially has life.
|     And substance in this sense is actuality.
|
| i.  The soul, then, is the actuality of the kind of body we
|     have described.  But actuality has two senses, analogous
|     to the possession of knowledge and the exercise of it.
|
| j.  Clearly (phaneron), actuality in our present sense
|     is analogous to the possession of knowledge;  for both
|     sleep (hypnos) and waking (egregorsis) depend upon the
|     presence of the soul, and waking is analogous to the
|     exercise of knowledge, sleep to its possession (echein)
|     but not its exercise (energein).
|
| k.  Now in one and the same person the
|     possession of knowledge comes first.
|
| l.  The soul may therefore be defined as the first actuality
|     of a natural body potentially possessing life;  and such
|     will be any body which possesses organs (organikon).
|
| m.  The parts of plants are organs too, though very
|     simple ones:  e.g., the leaf protects the pericarp,
|     and the pericarp protects the seed;  the roots are
|     analogous to the mouth, for both these absorb food.
|
| n.  If then one is to find a definition which will apply
|     to every soul, it will be "the first actuality of
|     a natural body possessed of organs".
|
| o.  So one need no more ask (zetein) whether body and
|     soul are one than whether the wax (keros) and the
|     impression (schema) it receives are one, or in
|     general whether the matter of each thing is
|     the same as that of which it is the matter;
|     for admitting that the terms unity and being
|     are used in many senses, the paramount (kyrios)
|     sense is that of actuality.
|
| p.  We have, then, given a general definition
|     of what the soul is:  it is substance in
|     the sense of formula (logos), i.e., the
|     essence of such-and-such a body.
|
| q.  Suppose that an implement (organon), e.g. an axe,
|     were a natural body;  the substance of the axe
|     would be that which makes it an axe, and this
|     would be its soul;  suppose this removed, and
|     it would no longer be an axe, except equivocally.
|     As it is, it remains an axe, because it is not of
|     this kind of body that the soul is the essence or
|     formula, but only of a certain kind of natural body
|     which has in itself a principle of movement and rest.
|
| r.  We must, however, investigate our definition
|     in relation to the parts of the body.
|
| s.  If the eye were a living creature, its soul would be
|     its vision;  for this is the substance in the sense
|     of formula of the eye.  But the eye is the matter
|     of vision, and if vision fails there is no eye,
|     except in an equivocal sense, as for instance
|     a stone or painted eye.
|
| t.  Now we must apply what we have found true of the part
|     to the whole living body.  For the same relation must
|     hold good of the whole of sensation to the whole sentient
|     body qua sentient as obtains between their respective parts.
|
| u.  That which has the capacity to live is not the body
|     which has lost its soul, but that which possesses
|     its soul;  so seed and fruit are potentially bodies
|     of this kind.
|
| v.  The waking state is actuality in the same sense
|     as the cutting of the axe or the seeing of the eye,
|     while the soul is actuality in the same sense as the
|     faculty of the eye for seeing, or of the implement for
|     doing its work.
|
| w.  The body is that which exists potentially;  but just as
|     the pupil and the faculty of seeing make an eye, so in
|     the other case the soul and body make a living creature.
|
| x.  It is quite clear, then, that neither the soul nor
|     certain parts of it, if it has parts, can be separated
|     from the body;  for in some cases the actuality belongs
|     to the parts themselves.  Not but what there is nothing
|     to prevent some parts being separated, because they are
|     not actualities of any body.
|
| y.  It is also uncertain (adelon) whether the soul as an
|     actuality bears the same relation to the body as the
|     sailor (ploter) to the ship (ploion).
|
| z.  This must suffice as an attempt to determine
|     in rough outline the nature of the soul.

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