Severian I, Severian II, Severian III, Severian Ad Nauseum

Son of Witz · 04 Dec 2008, 07:16 · from 2008-December.txt.gz

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From: sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org (Son of Witz)
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 23:16:14 -0800
Subject: (urth) Severian I, Severian II, Severian III,
	Severian Ad Nauseum
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Message-ID: <8436056A-5B5D-4BBA-90F0-A235F018B66A at butcherbaker.org>

thanks.

I'm more or less familiar with the concepts.
I just lose track of the jargon and attributions.
~witz


On Dec 3, 2008, at 8:37 PM, Lane Haygood wrote:

> OK, so matter, form and anima.
>
> Plato and many of the early philosophers wrestled with this idea of  
> universality.  For instance, if we go and look at a red thing (an  
> apple), we know it's red.  We see the color.  But what about  
> "redness?"  What is the "thing-status" (being, reality) of redness?
>
> Plato answers that for every general category there is a perfect,  
> unchanging, eternal Idea (eidolon) that is that category.  So, in  
> the Platonic Heaven of the Forms, there is the perfect Form of Red,  
> and all particular red things "participate in" the form of red.   
> That is, red things are imperfect instantiations of redness.
>
> But we never have direct contact with this world, Plato says, so we  
> must know about it in another way.  Hence, he theorizes that our  
> souls know it, but forget it as we are born into the mortal world.   
> When we see particular instantiations, it allows us to grasp the  
> pure concept through a process called anamnesis, the remembrance of  
> the Forms in our souls.
>
> Aristotle found this to be problematic, and so argued instead that  
> universality was a feature of things themselves.  The general idea  
> of redness, he argues, inheres the being of red things.  That is,  
> there is no "redness" apart from red things.  The same "ground for  
> being" is in all particular predicates.  When I say of an apple, "is  
> red," I am really making the claim that the apple itself is a  
> ground, a substance, for predication of a property, redness, but  
> that said property has no independent ground for being apart from  
> that substance.
>
> Matter is the stuff that persists through physical changes, or what  
> we commonly think of as physical stuff.  It's like dirt, or wind, or  
> water.  But it can be given form, and certain things arise only in  
> concert between matter and form.  A house, for instance, isn't the  
> bricks and the framework and the plumbing, etc.  It is the thing  
> that is made up by their precise configuration.  To put it more  
> poetically, a cup isn't the clay shell, but the empty space inside  
> of it that is useful.  That's what gives a thing its telos, its  
> purpose.
>
> So what is a substance, as opposed to just matter?  A substance is  
> something non-separable from the object.  I can separate the color  
> red from the apple.  It is possible to think of a non-red apple.   
> But I can't think of an apple that is non-spatial.  Extension, mass,  
> etc. are all properties of an apple that are substantial rather than  
> predicable.  In other words, substantial features cannot have  
> separate existence.  A substance must also be differentiable from  
> other things. Individuality is a rough way of understanding it, but  
> that implies too much uniqueness.  We must be able to say that  
> "this, and not that" is a thing.  Matter is therefore not a  
> substance, because matter cannot fulfill both these conditions at  
> once.
>
> So the primary substance for Aristotle is <i>form</i> or essence  
> (ousia) -- that special unique thing about a given individual that  
> helps us to differentiate it, without which it would not be a thing  
> at all.  But nothing exists in this sort of "raw" state.  Everything  
> is matter + form, or essences and predicates, or grounds and  
> properties.  Apples have "applehood," but they also have mass,  
> extension, a color, a taste, a smell, etc.
>
> Anima refers to the soul (Aristotle's "De Anima" is translated as  
> "on the soul."). It literally means breath, but refers instead to  
> the life-force or essential energy that animates (hey, hey, clue)  
> the body.  Living things are matter + form + anima.  We might say  
> that anima was a primitive attempt at understanding consciousness,  
> though that'd be specious, because we're no closer to understanding  
> what consciousness is 2,000 years later, and probably won't have any  
> greater clue 2,000 years from today what it is.
>
> This has been your nightly PHIL 101 lesson.
>
> Lane
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