Aristotle on Episteme and Nous: the Posterior Analytics

According to the standard and largely traditional interpretation, Aristotle’s conception of nous, at least as it occurs in the Posterior Analytics, is geared against a certa in set of skeptical worries about the possibil i ty of scientif ic knowledge, and ultimately of the knowledge of Aristotel ian first principles. On this view, Aristotle introduces nous as an intuitive faculty that grasps the first principles once and for al l as true in such a way that i t does not leave any room for the skeptic to press his skeptical point any further. Thus the traditional interpretation views Aristotel ian nous as having an internalist justif icatory role in Aristotel ian epistemology. In contrast, a minority (empiricist) view that has emerged recently holds the same internalist justificatory view of nous but rejects its internally certif iable infal l ibi l i ty by stressing the connection between nous and Aristotel ian induction. I argue that both approaches are flawed in that Aristotle’s project in the Posterior Analytics is not to answer the skeptic on internalist justificatory grounds, but rather lay out a largely externalist explication of scientif ic knowledge, i.e. what scientific knowledge consists in, without worrying as to whether we can ever show the skeptic to his satisfaction that we do ever possess knowledge so defined. ARISTOTLE ON EPISTEME AND NOUS: THE POSTERIOR ANALYTICS 1 It is diff icult to know whether one knows or not. APo 76a26 Whatever the overall drawbacks and difficulties of the Posterior Analytics are, one thing is quite clear, it is the most integrated and worked out text ever written by Aristotle on his philosophy of science and theory of scientif ic knowledge in general. And yet, as it stands, it is often quite perfunctory. It is not surprising that many critics and interpreters have found it difficult to penetrate and obscure in details especia l ly when compared with his most important works such as Physics, Metaphysics, and Nicomachean Ethics. At a lmost every stage in the text one is confronted with serious interpretive problems. There is, however, one problem that, because of its central importance within Aristotle’s overall system of thought, has especia l ly occupied and puzzled the students of Aristotle. The problem centers around Aristotle’s account of scientif ic knowledge (episteme) and its conditions, and thus, it can be seen to arise mainly from the general theoretical structure of the Posterior Analytics. I believe that the problem is largely an interpretive one: it arises only when Aristotle is interpreted in a certa in way under certain epistemological assumptions whose roots are rather modern. Thus my aim in this paper wil l be to argue for an interpretation of the Posterior Analytics — for a possible way of seeing Aristotle’s general programme in it — which is, I hope, free from the putative problem. Hence, I wil l a ttempt to dissolve rather than solve the problem. It is crucia l to be very clear about how it has been supposed to arise and thought to be solved by Aristotle. So my first job in the first section wil l be to state the problem as presented and interpreted by what I broadly take to be the orthodox and traditional view. I wil l be meticulous in my reconstruction, since my argumentative strategy will essentia l ly depend on the framework I wil l provide. So I want the reader to bear with me in the first and the second sections. The job of Section II is to survey the broadly empiricist, and thus non-orthodox, attempts to solve the same problem. As wil l become apparent, although I am very sympathetic to these studies, I believe they too have problems. I hope to show that the inadequacies of both the orthodox and empiricist attempts to solve what they take to be the basic epistemological problem of the Posterior Analytics have the same source, namely, the epistemological assumptions made in diagnosing the a l leged problem. Once this is clarif ied, I wil l show that there is no evidence that Aristotle makes those assumptions (a lthough these are not foreign to Aristotle). In fact, I wil l present evidence to the contrary (§V). Sections III–IV will reconstruct Aristotle’s analysis of episteme. Sections VI–VII wil l first analyze and then locate nous in the emerging picture. I wil l conclude that Aristotle’s epistemology in the Posterior Analytics is free from the putative problem. Let us, then, start with what the problem is al leged to be.