Have I Alone Escaped to Tell You? Another Response to Knasas
/By John G. Brungardt
Professor Knasas has kindly responded to my rejoinder to his reply to my review of his book. He considers, once again, Aristotle’s argument for the eternity of motion from time, discusses the limits of natural philosophic speculation when it comes to imagining realities beyond those limits, discusses the limits of the considerations of natural philosophy in regard to the human soul as a subject of contemplation, and concludes with a reminder to a text central to his aforementioned book (ST, Ia, q. 44, a. 2) as emblematic of his interpretation as part of the project of existentialist Thomism. This is to shore up his claims, respectively, that natural philosophy cannot avoid concluding to the eternity of motion, nor (it seems) properly identify certain things as merely figments of its imagination, cannot prove the existence of anything immaterial, and that (indirectly) other approaches in Thomism advocating otherwise on these points are mistaken. The debate between various Thomistic schools of thought on this question of natural philosophy’s link to embryonic metaphysics is extensive. As Daniel De Haan has judged, the debate is at an intractable standstill. According to De Haan, a debate such as the one Knasas and I are having is pointless, but I would fare the worse for it, if indeed I am among those Thomists who “will continue not only to hinder their own contributions to natural philosophy” but also who “will continue to make their entire approach to philosophy of nature irrelevant to contemporary philosophical enquiry into the truths concerning nature” (“Is Philosophy of Nature Irrelevant?” 340).
Faced with such criticisms, what should one do? Is that school of Thomism—well, schools, albeit for our purposes we need not note distinctions between River Forest and Laval—that takes my side of the debate an unwitting enemy of Thomism today? Perhaps it is best to decide what sort of Thomist I hope to be. Am I concerned with the interpretation of Thomasian texts as an end in itself (a Thomasian categorical imperative), or is the interpretation of St. Thomas’s texts a means—the closest I can get, on this side of the veil—to discipleship as his student, itself a means to a yet higher end?
I pick the second. In what follows, I take up Knasas’s four themes in turn, all of which ultimately call into question the worth of pursuing natural philosophy today.
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A summary of our exchange on the first point: I maintain that natural philosophical reflection can see the circularity in the Aristotelian arguments attempting to prove the eternity of motion. That is, the natural philosopher could make use of logic as a tool to avoid erroneous conclusions. This point hinged on understanding Aquinas’s own charge of circularity against one of Aristotle’s arguments in Physics, Book VIII.
Knasas disagrees. With respect to that argument, Knasas claims that “Aquinas reformulates [Aristotle’s] third argument so that the circularity criticism no longer applies and only a metaphysical criticism applies. Hence, without a metaphysics in place the third argument still appears as conclusive.” This reformulation is in n. 984 of the Physics commentary. Knasas claims that Aquinas’s reformulation of the previous argument in n. 983 is reasoning that avoids the charge of circular reasoning. So, is there a reformulation that results in new reasoning?
I do not think so. In n. 984, Aquinas is clarifying Aristotle’s intention against Averroes’s failed attempt to defend him. Averroes tries to derive the property that a now is both beginning and end from a “flowing [fluens]” account of time, but this will not do (as I discussed in my previous post). Rather, “aliter dicendum est”—the matter should be put differently. Confusingly, Knasas states that “Aquinas shifts Aristotle’s intention to what it means to call the now either a beginning or an end” when Aquinas simply writes that something else must be said “in accord with the intention of Aristotle” (my emphases). The “aliter” applies to Averroes, not to Aristotle’s intention.
What is it that must be said differently? It is the text now quoted several times in this debate. Aristotle’s intention is this:
[Aristotle] wishes to derive the fact that every now is a beginning and an end from what he had first supposed, namely, that prior and subsequent [prius et posterius] would not exist if time did not exist. For he uses this principle, which he supposes for no other purpose, but deduces from it that every now is a beginning and an end.
This is the “before and after” or “prior and posterior” belonging to time (not motion, since motion is the argument’s overall target; see the conditional syllogism in n. 980). Aquinas noted this supposition of Aristotle’s in n. 979: “prior and subsequent cannot be [prius et posterius esse non possunt] unless there is time, since time is nothing else than prior and subsequent precisely as numbered” (translation modified). This supposition is made “for no other purpose” than to show “from it that every now is a beginning and an end.” (n. 984) That is, Aquinas is not reformulating Aristotle’s basis for argument but clarifying it against Averroes. By recalling the prior supposition from n. 979, Aquinas is not shifting Aristotle’s intention but restating it. This means that n. 984 is a concluding clarification—n. 985 moves to a different argument altogether—and thus we should return to Aristotle’s argument of n. 982 and Aquinas’s criticism of circular reasoning in n. 983 with fresh eyes.[1]
Now, this is where Knasas introduces the concerns of n. 990, which is part of a long series of further considerations offered by Aquinas on the subject of motion’s eternity and related topics, not part of the exposition and explanation of Aristotle’s text. Knasas draws from n. 990 that “the principle that the before and after are not without time implies only an imaginary time.”
Before considering this, I note that, in n. 990, Aquinas reviews his commentary discussion from nn. 982–84, writing that “the statement that every now is both a beginning and an end should not be conceded unless it be also granted that motion always existed.” This is another charge of circular reasoning against that argument. Aristotle—like Homer every once in a while—nods when trying to derive the perpetuity of motion from the perpetuity of time, since time relies upon motion as upon a subject. As I argued in my previous reply, “That the now is ‘the beginning of the future and the end of the past’ is true of the now as subject but not part of the now’s very ratio or nature. This is a crucial point. Were it part of the now’s very nature to be a middle, Aristotle’s argument from the now as middle would work of necessity.” That is, the subject of the now is the momentum of motion, and so the now’s having a prior or posterior is dependent upon its subject having one, that is, dependent upon motion having a prior and posterior. Only if motion has such a structure will time have such a structure. Hence, Aquinas can point out what it would mean for there to be a first “momentum” of motion and thus a first moment in time: “If, therefore, we suppose that motion has not always existed, but that we can take some first indivisible in motion before which nothing of motion existed, we can also take some now in time before which there was no time.”
Aquinas then notes: “Now, we have already shown, in explaining the text, that what Averroes says to bolster this argument is inefficacious. But neither is there any efficacy in what Aristotle cites to bolster his own position, namely, that before and after do not exist without time.” (As an aside, this comports with my reading of the sequence of reasoning in nn. 982–84.) Aquinas goes on to make points about imaginary time and the inefficacy of Aristotle’s supposition. Just like imagining places outside the edge of the sphere-cosmos, so too one can mistakenly imagine a time prior to a beginning in time. This, as Knasas rightly notes, is a new criticism, one that Aquinas makes in many places, as Knasas also notes.
Here, I see no reason to dispute with Knasas about how Aquinas—or we, for that matter—can know that the relevant sense of a “prior” duration to a hypothetical first now is the priority of God’s eternity as measure of all other durations. I would, however, offer two clarifications: one about the nature of “the imaginary” in natural philosophy and another about the positive, albeit hypothetical, use of Aristotle’s argument.
First, it is not outside the capacity of the philosophy of nature as a habitus of knowledge to recognize and avoid fallacies of the imagination. For instance, in Physics, III.8, Aristotle criticizes fallacies of imagination with regard to possible sizes of things; in n. 403, Aquinas notes this. The philosophy of nature can make such a criticism because it considers matter and its potentialities and limits as causes, which are intelligible and not imaginable realities. Again, in n. 698, we are told that the geometers can imagine a point as moving, but natural philosophy proves that it cannot (see Physics, VI.4 and VI.10). The fallacies of imagination are also corrected in contemporary natural philosophy in its specific domains, where it makes use of mathematical tools. For instance, one can model a parabolic motion of a projectile flying off a cliff using a quadratic function, which function—depending upon its translation along the x-axis—could have two roots, one positive, representing the point of impact, and one negative, representing nothing. The physicist readily recognizes that the latter is not a solution to the projectile’s motion, because mathematics abstraction from matter and motion (Physics, II.2). More complex examples are possible: e.g., cosmologists argue that the singularities in the mathematical equations of Big Bang theory do not indicate anything about the physical world as much as they indicate the limits of the model’s applicability to the physical world. So, too, did natural philosophers criticize arguments that try to prove place or void exist beyond the finite magnitude of the world (see De Caelo, I.9); this sort of criticism is paralleled today in certain critiques of arguments for multiverses.
Second, I note that Knasas indicates two places in the Thomasian corpus (Sent. Meta., n. 2497 and In Phys., n. 987), where St. Thomas offers intriguing interpretations of Aristotle’s eternity of motion arguments; in the former (n. 2497), these arguments are not demonstrations, “unless perhaps they are arguments against the positions of the ancient natural philosophers regarding the beginning of motion, inasmuch as he aims to destroy these positions.” In the latter (n. 987), “the truth of the faith is not assailed by [these arguments],” rather, “they prove that motion did not begin through the way of nature, as some taught it did; but it cannot be proved by these arguments that it did not begin by things being created by a first principle of things, as our faith holds.” Knasas comments on these two interpretations:
[on n. 2497] Does not Aquinas's remark mean that the arguments work on the level of natural philosophy? Also, since begging the question by circularity destroys an argument, then there is no begging of the question by circularity in these arguments on the level of natural philosophy. ... [on n. 987] Does that not admit that on the plane of natural philosophy, the arguments do work? Should that not also suggest that without another plane to appeal to, the natural philosopher will assert the heterodox opinion that the world has always existed? The answers to these questions seems to me to be a clear yes.
I understand Aquinas’s remarks to mean that, were one to hold, like the ancient materialists, that motion began in some strict sense, that is, with no motion or change prior to such a first momentum of motion or first coming to be (perhaps due to eternal prior rest or a generation of all things), then you could not appeal to natural causes in order to begin motion, since these causes operate through motion or coming to be. That is, both interpretations are ad hominem, answering an opponent—in this case, the ancient materialists—on his own terms. I note that, in n. 2497, Aquinas qualifies his view with “perhaps [forte],” and in n. 987 he simply gives the interpretation I have just offered. In contrast to a universal cause of being (creation), he states: “Accordingly, it does not follow that, before the first change, there was a previous change. But this would follow if the movers and mobiles were newly brought into existence by some particular agent acting upon some presupposed subject that would be changed from non-being to being, or from privation to form—and Aristotle’s argument concerns this way of coming into existence” (my emphasis). Natural causes cannot be called upon to activate natural causes as such. Aquinas is not admitting that the arguments “on the plane of natural philosophy” work categorically; rather, they are conditionally true refutations of a specific naturalist thesis. It is not impossible for the arguments to be conditionally sound! Thus, since “circularity destroys and argument,” natural philosophy is not doomed to heretical opinions if any particular natural philosopher attempts to make such arguments categorical. The answers to both of Knasas’s questions are no.
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Knasas goes on to elaborate on his third and fourth themes, mentioned above, namely the limits of the considerations of natural philosophy in regard to the human soul as a subject of contemplation and the project of existentialist Thomism. I cannot comment on his article “Aquinas on the Cognitive Soul,” as I have not read it. Any readers will be unsurprised by my guess that I will have a different approach. I am unconvinced, as Knasas appears to insists about In Phys., n. 175, that a Thomistic quomodo sit is the same as an sit. When Knasas notes that “As an improper sense of motion, intellection should fall outside the subject of natural philosophy, ens mobile, and so not be considered by the natural philosopher,” that is part of a quomodo sit. I had already noted as much based on other texts.
Indeed, without denying that there are properly metaphysical arguments for the immateriality of the intellect, how might natural philosophy go about realizing such things? If the conclusion is to be that this substance or this power or this motion is not a material substance or power or motion, and one ex hypothesi does not know formally of the existence of immateriality, then one must rely upon experience, its dialectical analysis, and prior knowledge in the philosophy of nature. From a careful consideration of materiality and motion, certain known effects can be contrasted with the capacities of physical things and a negative conclusion reached. Since natural philosophy is the only part of speculative philosophy that studies matter as such, it should be familiar enough with matter. Thus, it is capable of forming such a middle term. This is the hard-won fruit of the investigations of a part of the philosophy of nature, philosophical psychology, through a careful sequence of contrasts to distinguish motion, sensation, imagination, and intellection. How this happens or what it is that does this must be left to a different habitus of knowledge
I emphasize that the above argument is about the Thomistic philosophy of nature. Not the Thomasian texts at the surface level. Thomists cannot live by Thomasian bread alone. However, it seems to me that such a procedure is found in texts like De Anima. What other procedure is there to establish the existence of immateriality? In the initial order of discovery, a metaphysical use of dialectic cannot do this because, in the life of the mind, along that path of the development of the philosophical organism of habitus (plural) of speculation and contemplation, metaphysical inquiry properly begins with the realization of immateriality and does not establish it.
For instance, in (ST, Ia, q. 75, a. 2, c.), the natural philosopher can follow part of the argument which metaphysics then completes. His argument turns on the nature of bodies and how they receive forms. The effect (the object of the soon-to-be-clarified intellectual power) is a knowledge of all bodies. This is the experiential datum, and the philosopher of nature can properly interpret it in the negative: no material thing can thus receive forms. With this an sit of operation, Aquinas, in the article, concludes that the human soul is subsistent, a quid sit. Even though a renewed dialectic in metaphysics can more clearly characterize the initial datum, the experience and characteristic proper to having a soul that subsists apart from matter, this does not prevent natural philosophy from using the selfsame datum according to its own lights: the experience of knowing “all bodies” exceeds the nature of material receptivity.
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Philosophy, the pursuit of wisdom, tasks all its disciples with following a path of inquiry in which we recapitulate in the small what the perennial tradition shows us in great paradigms. In his essay “Sixteenth-Century Reception of Aquinas by Cajetan” (in The Oxford Handbook of the Reception of Aquinas, 144–58), Fr. Cajetan Cuddy, O.P., describes his namesake’s reception of St. Thomas’s teaching as an intensive reception of first principles as the form of inquiry, along with a defensive movement addressing unanswered objections and an extensive movement answering new questions as the matter of that tradition (see ibid., 146–47). On the whole, this makes the reception of Aquinas’s teaching a sapiential one: addressing the contingencies of one’s place and time through principles that transcend them. Russell Hittinger also describes the difficulties for Thomism after Aeterni Patris to move “forward toward a constructive engagement with modern philosophy and science” given “a constructive and synthetic Thomism on the one hand and a legislated or disciplinary Thomism on the other.”[2]
The River Forest/Laval or the existentialist schools of Thomism, in their various debates, might appear to some to be vying for the leadership role in “legislated and disciplinary Thomism” of one sort or other. This is not my judgment on the whole. Both Professor Knasas and I share the hope for a constructive and synthetic Thomism, an intensive reception of our common teacher’s wisdom, since, to paraphrase Ralph McInerny in his memoirs, to be the best Thomist is simply to be the best philosopher. I can therefore thank Professor Knasas heartily for this opportunity to further my discipleship to our common teacher.
Nonetheless, I would conclude with this. Grave dangers await a putative Thomism without natural philosophy as a materially integral and formally complete habitus of rational inquiry and contemplative insight. Thus, I play upon the title of Ralph McInerny’s memoirs as the basis for this essay’s title. He is a teacher to whom I owe so much, especially in regard to this question, even though I never met him. I give Yves Simon the last word—to serve as my last in this particular exchange, at least—as he expresses well my overarching concern in this essay:
I used to have a friend who was, and probably still is, quite a good medievalist, who one day explained to me that the bad thing with Thomistic metaphysics is that it implies the possibility of a philosophy of nature. True, it does. Now, he himself considered that the possibility of a philosophy of nature had been destroyed by the work of the great thinkers of the seventeenth century, above all, Galileo and Descartes. Thus if there were to be any future for metaphysics, metaphysics would have to assume such a form as to be possible independently of any philosophy of nature. We are here at the heart of a system of problems of great relevance. These problems concern the content of what the philosophers have to say about nature. They also concern the epistemological question of the very possibility of a philosophy of nature. And if this question is answered in the affirmative, if a philosophy of nature is possible at all, then, you can see that in our progress in the philosophic interpretation of nature we shall have constantly to carry out an epistemological reflection on what we are doing. All that promises to be very difficult, but if we are only half equal to our task it should also be very interesting. (The Great Dialogue of Nature and Space, 17)
[1] As an aside, my reading also explains the lack of a circularity charge in the texts Knasas cites—from De Potentia, q. 3, a. 17, ad 2, or Summa contra Gentiles II.36, or ST Ia, q. 46, a. 1, ad 2 (sic; ad 6 seems to be the one intended)—, because those texts raise points about “imaginary time” which Knasas goes on to discuss according to his own interpretation. As a further aside, I would make similar points about the other places that Knasas notes the circularity criticism does not arise. I see no necessity for Aquinas to keep circling back to that criticism if he had other goals in mind in a given text.
[2] See “Two Modernisms, Two Thomisms: Reflections on the Centenary of Pius X’s Letter Against the Modernists,” Nova et Vetera 5, no. 4 (2007): 843–80, at 846 and 847.