Jarosław Olesiak - Knowledge and opinion in Aristotle.pdf - Epistemologia - polak-maly

Diametros nr 27 (marzec 2011): 170184

K NOWLEDGE AND O PINION IN A RISTOTLE

– Jarosław Olesiak –

In this essay I would like to examine Aristotle’s distinction between knowl

edge 1 ( episteme ) and opinion ( doxa ). The primary passage I will make use of is Pos

terior Analytics I.33. I will also refer to other texts and to the remarks of some of his

translators and commentators. My thesis is that for Aristotle the distinction be

tween knowledge and opinion is a complex one in which a number of factors must

be taken into account. In order to have scientific knowledge, the following criteria

(some objective, others subjective) must be satisfied: the object must be (objec

tively) true; it must be (objectively) necessary; the object must (subjectively) be

thought to be necessary; the true cause has to be known (subjectively); and the

necessity of the causal connection in the account or demonstration of the known

proposition must also be perceived (again, subjectively). If any of these are not

satisfied, there can at most be true opinion. Of these criteria the most important,

and hence the one to which most attention will be devoted, is objective necessity.

Near the beginning of Posterior Analytics I.33 Aristotle names the three

things which can be true: rational intuition ( nous ), science ( episteme ), and opinion

( doxa ) ( APo 89a1). Furthermore, he mentions two kinds of objects of intellectual

cognition, things which are capable of being otherwise and those which are not. In

what follows I hope to explain how Aristotle understands the relationship be

tween all of these terms: knowledge, opinion, and their objects, the necessary and

the nonnecessary.

Before setting out to consider knowledge and opinion, I would like to clar

ify what Aristotle means by rational intuition. In various places he defines it as the

state of mind or faculty which grasps the first principles of knowledge and dem

onstration ( EN 1141a7, 1143a35; APo 85a1, 100b8). In Posterior Analytics I.33 he calls

it the originative source of scientific knowledge. He places it alongside scientific

1 Aristotle’s Greek term “ episteme ” may be translated into English variously as “scientific knowl

edge,” “science,” or simply as “knowledge.” The term knowledge may also be used to refer to cog

nition in general. Whenever there might exist the risk of a confusion between knowledge in the

sense of episteme and knowledge in the generic sense I will use the term scientific knowledge.

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knowledge in being about things that are not capable of being otherwise. How

ever, he also seems to distinguish it from indemonstrable knowledge, which he

describes as the grasping of the immediate premise ( APo 88b35). Earlier in the Pos

terior Analytics (I.3) he speaks of a faculty, which appears to be the rational intui

tion we are considering, and says that through it we know immediate, indemon

strable truths and recognize “definitions” or “ultimate truths.” 2 He calls it the ar

che epistemes or the first principle of knowledge. The problem before us, then, is to

determine the relationship between rational intuition and indemonstrable knowl

edge on the one hand, and between it and scientific knowledge on the other. This

problem is important because I believe that rational intuition plays a key role in

the distinction between knowledge and opinion and in the conversion of opinion

into knowledge.

Both Apostle and Ross comment on this problem. Apostle wonders why

indemonstrable knowledge is mentioned at all, since rational intuition seems to be

sufficient. He makes several suggestions: first, he says that some commentators

hold that the two are used synonymously by Aristotle. Secondly, rational intuition

might be a broader term than indemonstrable knowledge, if it is not necessarily

the apprehension of a composite proposition as knowledge is. Thirdly, they could

be different terms: rational intuition could be the direct apprehension of an object

while indemonstrable knowledge could represent a thought. 3

Ross’s explanation is based upon the distinction between indemonstrable

knowledge and demonstrable knowledge: both entail subjective certainty and the

grasping of necessary truths, but the former differs from the latter in being imme

diate and not ratiocinative. As regards nous he holds that it is synonymous with

indemonstrable knowledge, since both are referred to as “principles of knowl

edge.” 4

The solution which I would suggest is that rational intuition and indemon

strable knowledge are related as faculty and object of the faculty. Rational intui

tion would then be the faculty by which we grasp anything which is not demon

strable, whether it be a definition, an axiom, a hypothesis, or an undefinable con

cept, as Apostle suggests, or a composite but indemonstrable proposition which is

2 Posterior Analytics , 72b24. The quoted alternative translations of horous gnorizomen are Mure’s and

Tredennick’s, respectively. G.R.G. Mure, “Posterior Analytics”, The Basic Works of Aristotle , ed.

Richard McKeon, (Random House, New York 1941), p. 114 (I.3, para. 2); Hugh Tredennick, Aris

totle: Posterior Analytics , Loeb Classical Library, (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.

1960), p. 39.

3 Hippocrates Apostle, Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics (The Peripatetic Press, Grinnell, Iowa 1981),

p. 209.

4 William David Ross, Aristotle’s Prior and Posterior Analytics (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1949), p. 606.

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Jarosław Olesiak ◦ Knowledge and Opinion in Aristotle

either seen intuitively or not seen at all. Rational intuition is related to knowledge

in that it grasps necessary but immediate truths, as Ross suggests. It also causes

one to “see” the connection in a demonstration, for these are immediate and not

susceptible to further demonstration.

Having seen how rational intuition is related to demonstrable and inde

monstrable knowledge, let us consider next the relationship between knowledge

and opinion. In the opening lines of Posterior Analytics I.33 Aristotle states that

knowledge and its object differ from opinion and its object. As Apostle remarks in

his commentary, two differences are being considered, one between knowledge

and opinion, the other between their respective objects. 5 They are related as that

which pertains to the subject – for knowledge and opinion are found only in the

intellect – and as that which pertains to the object. I will first consider the objective

aspects of cognition. In doing so I will start with what is most remote from the

knowing subject and proceeding to what is more dependent on him.

We saw above that rational intuition stands alongside scientific knowledge

in being about what is necessarily true. Opinion stands in contrast to both. Truth is

the first point of distinction between knowledge and opinion, for while knowledge

is by definition always true, opinion can be true and false and is capable of chang

ing in truth value.

It ought to be understood, however, that the truth of knowledge pertains to

the universal or to the nature and not to individuals, for in the case of individual

sensible objects the universal truth of knowledge may fail to be satisfied because

of some defect. This qualification is needed because otherwise it might appear that

we cannot have science of sensible things. A science of them does exist insofar as

there is some necessity in them.

While opinion, like knowledge, can be about what is true, only the object of

knowledge is necessary. Necessity is in fact the principal difference between the

objects of knowledge and those of opinion; scientific knowledge, explains Aris

totle, “is commensurately universal and proceeds by necessary connections, and

that which is necessary cannot be otherwise” ( APo 88b32). Aristotle makes similar

assertions in a number of other places ( De An. 417b23; EN 1140b31; APo 73a22).

Perhaps the best instance of this is found in the Nicomachean Ethics :

Now what scientific knowledge is, if we are to speak exactly and not follow mere

similarities, is plain from what follows. We all suppose that what we know is not

5 H. Apostle, op . cit ., p. 209.

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Jarosław Olesiak ◦ Knowledge and Opinion in Aristotle

even capable of being otherwise; of things capable of being otherwise we do not

know, when they have passed outside our observation, whether they exist or not.

Therefore it is eternal; for things that are eternal are ungenerated and imperishable

(EN 1139b1924).

Opinion, on the other hand, has to do with that which is not necessary and

is capable of being otherwise. According to Aristotle there are also “things which

are true and real and yet can be otherwise” ( APo 88b33); they lack the stability

which is found in objects of knowledge and are hence liable to change, rendering

the opinion about them false. Aristotle defines opinion similarly in other places

( Metaph. 1039b33; EN 1140b27).

In his commentary on the Posterior Analytics , Aquinas agrees with Aristotle

as regards scientific knowledge. Two things, he says, pertain to science: First “it is

of the universal, for science is not concerned with singulars which fall under the

sense.” 6 Secondly, “science is obtained in virtue of necessary things” and “the nec

essary is that which cannot be otherwise.” 7 Hence science is universal, necessary,

and therefore eternal; it is concerned with the natures of things which are incor

ruptible in themselves, even though they be found in sensible particulars. Regard

ing opinion he also concurs with Aristotle that it is “the acceptance, i.e. grasping,

of a proposition that is immediate and not necessary.” 8

Apostle offers an example of each to illustrate the difference between them.

As an example of an object of knowledge he gives the equality of vertical angles.

This is a universal mathematical assertion which is necessarily true, for it follows

upon the nature of such angles. Moreover, since they are mathematical and hence

immaterial objects, they are incapable of changing. 9

Necessity, the fact that a thing must be the way it is and cannot be other

wise, is also the basis of objective certainty. The certitude proper to mathematical

propositions is one kind of certitude among several which are to be found in sci

ence. Aristotle divides theoretical science into three classes: metaphysics, which treats

of things which do not depend on matter in any way; mathematics, which treats of

those things which are found in matter but are not subject to motion or change;

and physics, which treats of those things which are both found in matter and are

subject to motion. The necessity of Apostle’s mathematical problem is of a particu

6 Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Posterior Analytics of Aristotle , trans. Fabian R. Larcher (Magi

Books, Inc., Albany, New York 1970), p. 157.

7 Ibidem .

8 Ibidem , p. 158.

9 H. Apostle, op . cit ., p. 209.

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Jarosław Olesiak ◦ Knowledge and Opinion in Aristotle

lar kind: it is the absolute certainty of quantitative forms which never fail in indi

viduals.

The certainty of metaphysics will be even greater because of a greater inde

pendence from matter, which is the source of the ability to be otherwise. For ex

ample, the principle of noncontradiction is much more fundamental than any

mathematical proposition; the latter in fact depend upon it. Finally, physics is the

least certain of the three; for although the universal truths which apply to it are

necessary, they may fail to be realized because of the presence of matter in the ob

jects of this science. Physical things can change, and physical causes and processes

can fail. In short, the necessity in physics is a contingent one, because of the multi

plicity of factors at work.

The example which Apostle gives of an object of opinion is John’s being in

school. 10 The object is clearly contingent and particular: being in school in no way

belongs to John by nature and John is but an individual member of a species. Uni

versality properly belongs to knowledge, while particularity belongs to opinion.

Jonathan Barnes considers objective necessity in the first part of his com

mentary on Posterior Analytics I.33. He reduces what he believes to be Aristotle’s

argument in the first part of the chapter (88b3089a10) to the proposition that “it is

not the case that: ( A understands that P if and only if A opines that P),” 11 that is,

that opinion and knowledge are not identical. In discussing the basis for this con

clusion, Barnes comments on necessity and objective certainty. He claims that the

conclusion which he suggests depends upon two premises. The first is that “if

A understands P then necessarilyP.” 12 In other words, if one understands or has

knowledge about something, that thing must be necessary. The second premise

which Barnes claims to be necessary to support the above conclusion has to do

with opinion. It is that “it is not the case that: (if A opines that P then necessarily

P)” 13 or that opining does not imply necessity in the thing considered. Barnes

holds that this is the premise which is supported by the text in the lines preceding

89a4. There Aristotle argues that contingencies must be the objects of opinion by

excluding them from among the objects of the other possible cognitive attitudes.

The assumption of course is that they are indeed objects of cognition. According to

Barnes, Aristotle’s argument would read as follows: 14

10 Ibidem .

11 Jonathan Barnes, Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics , 2nd ed. (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1993), p. 198.

12 Ibidem .

13 Ibidem .

14 Ibidem .

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