Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/553

ABISTOTLE'S EXPLANATION OF AKPASIA. 537 reproducing his views, or his editors working up his notes, or his pupils' notes it does not matter for our present purpose which view be taken, or whether the question can be settled or not Aristotle, as we may for convenience at least call the writer, who in any case is giving or developing Aristotelian doctrine, sees a difficulty in accepting the Socratic paradox that it is impossible to know what is right and yet do what is wrong. Nevertheless he sees that there is an important element of truth in it : this is finally admitted in 3, 14 : /cat lot/ce^ 6 r/Ti SwKpa-n/s o-u/xySatVeiv K.T.A. It is certainly an exaggeration to say, as Mr. Fairbrother does (p. 363), that " Aristotle sets himself to destroy the Socratic heresy ". The partial agreement with Socrates at which Aristotle here arrives corresponds exactly with the partial agreement re- specting the general relation between knowledge and conduct ex- pressed in Eth. Nic., VI., 13, 3, 1144 b 18 :*ai Sco^pd-r^s 777 pey 6p$u>s e^rei, T?} 8' r)jj.a.pTavfv cm /ACV yap c^poj^creis wero etvai Tracras ras apeTas, ^/xapravev, cm 8' OVK dveu e^pov^crecos, KaAcos eAcyev. Indeed Aristotle sets out on his discussion of the difficulties about a/cpao-to. with the hope of being able to accept in some sense all the principal current opinions on the subject (vii., 1, 5, 1145 b 4, 5). He finds, however, that he cannot accept as sufficient the Platonic solution of the difficulty the theory, viz. (vii., 2, 3, 1145 b 31), that it is possible to act contrary to true opinion (Sofa.) though not contrary to real knowledge (cTricr-n^o;). The difference between opinion and knowledge in the strict sense is, indeed, a genuine difference ; but it is a difference in the content and grounds of belief and not in the conviction with which a person holds a belief. Some people like Heraclitus, for instance (Prof. W. James would say "like Hegel") hold the most fantastic theories mere "opinions" of theirs, mere "dogmas" with as much firmness of conviction as if they rested upon scientific proof (c 3, 4). Thus, finding the Platonic solution insufficient, Aristotle pro- ceeds to face the problem himself. In the first place, the dis- tinction between potential and actual knowing (a distinction already made by Plato in the Thecetetus) helps us so far to understand how dpao-ta is possible. A person can act against his knowledge of what he ought to do, if that knowledge be not at the time vividly present in his consciousness. He cannot act contrary to knowledge vividly present. Secondly, when we speak of " knowing," we are dealing with something complex, and we must (1) distinguish knowledge of the universal (the major premise of a practical syllogism) from knowledge of the particular (i.e., the singular proposition which forms the minor premise of a practical syllogism), and (2) we must note that each of these premises is twofold, having a subjective and an objective refer- ence. 1 Thus as an example of a practical major premise we may 1 The complex nature of both premises (and therefore necessarily) of the conclusion of the practical syflogism is very clearly put in De A nima, iii., 11, 434 a 16, seq., where the major premise is given as ort 8 rov