Aristotelian Perspectives For Post-modern Reason (ii)

Introduction

The purpose of the present paper is to advance the construction of a model for rationality for the Post-modern Age. The identification of reason with science is no longer sustainable. What I propose is the development of an idea of prudent reason of Aristotelian inspiration. My method consists inbringing Aristotelian concepts to the current debate by connecting them with related present-day notions. In this way, the incorporation of Aristotelian notions into the current debate is made possible, as is the integration of today’s concepts into a coherent and fertile metaphysical framework, while a third effect, one of vast importance, is also obtained: from the Aristotelian perspective, the integrity of human action is recuperated, and is no longer split off in unconnected areas - Aristotelian anthropology may thus contribute to saving what Russell called ‘the schizophrenia of modern man’.

Today, then, Aristotelian prudence is correctly expressed in the attitude of intellectual modesty and respect for reality that we find in thinkers like Pierce, Popper and Jonas, enshrined in the Peircian maxim of not blocking the way of inquiry and in Jonas’s responsibility principle, which insists on the protection of the conditions for the continuity of life[^1] . These positions of contemporary authors are strengthened when understood against the background of Aristotelian ontology (there is a plurality of substances; being may be actual or potential, there is a path fromis toought . Man is desiring intelligence or intelligent desire; reality is not a copy of the concept, but is intelligible).

Furthermore, things being thus, we realize that a rational attitude is fundamentally the same in the different contexts of science and in other areas of human life. It is a question basically of protecting openness of human action in the future, for we know that it will have to tackle a (socio-natural) world whose future is also open. This attitude of protecting openness does not guarantee anything, but it is the best bet we can place in order for creative discoveries to continue to be made, so that man’s and nature’s creativity may survive.

One might think, however, that both Aristotelian prudence and Peirce’s maxim, together with Jonas’s responsibility principle are a scanty characterization of human action, for they do not take into account its creative  aspects. Jonas does not for a moment believe that his ethics alone can bring about total good, but rather, aware of its limits, he just seeks to protect the conditions of liberty, happiness and the future assumption of responsibilities; in the same way that Aristotelian prudence, rather than effectively producing practical truth, protects and cultivates the conditions for its appearance; in the same way as Peirce recommends as the ultimate maxim of reason, as the most universal and conclusive norm, that we should ensure the conditions needed for free research, and not block the way of inquiry. In short, the rational attitude consists above all in a protection and stimulation of the creative capacities that will allow us to adapt in the future to unforeseeable conditions. Prudent rationality, although it does not guarantee it, is directed towardscreative discovery , seeking to make it possible at all times, ensuring and stimulating the right conditions for it, removing obstacles, and upholding the openness of human action so that it can tackle the future course of events, always open and never altogether determined. On the other hand, the compliance with prudence and responsibility in difficult situations depends precisely on creativity. All too often human action is described from the methodological or ethical point of view as a set of alternatives, as the obligation to choose from pre-set options; in this way, it is forgotten that many times the best option - or the least bad - is not available and has to be createdwhile it is chosen and put into effect. Furthermore, the development of what is created and judgement on its adaptation are again carried out under the auspices of prudence. This multiple linking of the principles of prudence withcreative discovery demands of us an elucidation of this concept.

Current versions of prudence, like Peirce’s maxim or Jonas’s principle, are at the service of creative discovery. Aristotelian prudence seeks practical truth. This article seeks to trace a movement from the Aristotelian notion ofpractical truth to the Peircian concept ofcreative discovery , or, if we prefer, ofpoetic listening , as Prigogine would say. Science discovers as it creates: itmakes discoveries. This allows its activity to go in the direction of truth, but that truth must be made, brought about and actualized. Science - unlike the Moderns - does not aspire principally to certainty, but must go on - unlike the Postmoderns - looking for truth. It will be, of course, apractical truth .

The recognition of the practical implication of science, in its genesis, its applications and its justification, and the renunciation of the ideal of certainty no doubt mark the end of an era. The fallibilists, like Popper, distinguish between truth and certainty. Therefore, the critique of the ideal of certainty that characterizes Postmodernism does not necessarily have to affect the ideal of truth. But once the practical nature of science is recognized, the truth corresponding to it is practical truth. The notion of practical truth is of Aristotelian origin and is set out and studied inEthica  Nicomachea VI, 2.

It seems to me that this notion allows us at the same time to save the objectivity of science and its constructive aspect, without one threatening the other. Within the present argument it also allows us to bring out the deep reasons for which science is a prudent activity, never subjected to a rigid method, for it is creative, nor left to the whim of the irrational, for it must adjust to the reality it discovers. It may be shown, furthermore, as an activity that makes discoveries, to be not substantially different from other human activities, such as the arts, poetry, technology or moral action, although it has clear differences of manner with them. Now that its relationship with the Aristotelian concept of practical truth has been demonstrated, the notion of creative discovery also finds a basis in ontology and in Aristotelian anthropology of act and potentiality, and therefore looses its paradoxical aspect.

To comply with the goal mentioned, I shall first set forth (insection 2 ) the contents of the Aristotelian concept of practical truth just as it appears inEthica Nicomachae VI, 2. Secondly, I shall show how the Aristotelian notion of practical truth may be linked with today’s notion of creative discovery (insection 3 ). To my mind, discoveries aremade in many human activities: in science, poetry, art, technology, politics and ethics[^2] . In all human activities there is a theoretical aspect and a constructive one, which are only distinguished conceptually: we behold what we make, and this beholding is one of reality, for what we see are the possibilities of reality that our action has actualized, putting them before our eyes. Human action makes the discovery of similarity and puts it into practice physically (art, technology, politics, etc.) or simply contemplates it (poetry, science). In a world inhabited by a plurality of substances, real and possible, which are not absolutelyidentical or chaoticallydifferent , human action weaves the web ofsimilarities . The ‘mechanism’  that produces similarities is called metaphor; as Umberto Eco would say: the ‘Aristotelian machine of the metaphor’, which, of course, is not a machine but a person. Insection 4 , I shall set forth this idea of metaphor as the prime nucleus of human creativity, as the creative discovery of similarity[^3] . Finally, I shall set out the conclusions of this article and the outlook for future papers (insection 5 ).