How is it possible for the unmoved mover to think of itself if it is a particular? At the very least, it cannot know itself because it is a particular, and knowledge of particulars must be mediated through universals.
shut up fag
>>25332277universals don't exist
You don't know universals you know individual substances that manifest as many particulars whose universal indicates the substance. (Talking about 3 things here.)
Just read Heidegger, fuck faggy metaphysics.
>>25332789>redefines metaphysics as something radically more narrow than what it actually means and then say we must do away with this too narrow ideaFor someone who hated Jews Heidegger was a master of their tactics
>>25332277Averroes may be of interest:>This is what escaped Themistius when he allowed that the intellect may think many intelligibles at once, for this contradicts our theory that it thinks itself and not something outside itself and that the intellect and its intelligible are one in every respect. For he (= Themistius) says that it thinks all things by thinking that it is their principle; all this is the theory of somebody who did not understand Aristotle's demonstrations here. But this entails an objectionable consequence, namely that the deity will be ignorant of what is here below.>Therefore, some people said that it knows what is here by a universal knowledge, not by a particular knowledge.>The truth is that because it knows only itself, it knows the existents through the existence which is the cause of their existences. For instance, one does not say, with regard to him who knows the heat of fire only, that he has no knowledge of the nature of the heat existing in hot things, but he is the one who knows the nature of heat qua heat. Likewise, the First (praise to Him!) is He who knows absolutely the nature of being qua being, which is His essence. Therefore, the word "knowledge" is said of His knowledge and our knowledge by homonymy. For His knowledge is the cause of being and being is the cause of our knowledge; and His knowledge cannot be described as universal, nor as particular, for he whose knowledge is universal knows potentially the particulars which are in actuality and the object of his knowledge is of necessity knowledge in potentiality since the universal (knowledge) is only knowledge of particular things; if the universal (knowledge) is knowledge in potentiality and there is no potentiality in His knowledge, then His knowledge is not universal. A clearer (argument) is that His knowledge is not particular, because the particulars are infinite and no knowledge encompasses them; He is not characterized by the knowledge which is in us, nor by the ignorance which is its opposite, just as that which is not fit to possess any of these two (knowledge and ignorance) is not characterized by them. The existence of a knowing existent which is not characterized by the knowledge which is in us, nor by the ignorance which is in us, and whose existence is not distinct from his knowledge has thus become evident.
>>25332820... so if I'm getting this down correctly... Averroes says that the unmoved mover knows... the essence of essence. And the unmoved mover is this essence (of essence) which thinks itself and nothing else. And contra Themistius who argues that the unmoved mover has to also know the implied causes (which is an intuitive belief imho), Averroes argues this essence is all that the unmoved mover needs to know in order to have a rich understanding of all. This understanding is sufficient enough, since it would know the essence of the essence of each particular, but this knowledge is also not merely a universal (although it looks like one at a first glance) because it has no potency. Hmmm. That actually kind of works. Perhaps the unmoved mover doesn't need to know all the little details of all things the way Themistius says because, given its eternality and actuality, it knows all in a way that they all hang together as a unity without the ambiguity/potency of (human) knowledge. From the POV of an eternal being, let alone the source of being, even a universe in motion would probably look like a static block universe, one united whole.
>>25332598You don't know individual substances in the sense that the particular form of the individual substance is in your mind. You know the individual substance only in the sense that you have a universal which corresponds with that individual substance among many others. That is the extent to which your mind is in line with the individual substance. It is a mediated and somewhat indirect knowledge and fraught with potency.
