Endoxa and the A priori

He claims further that in his discussion of incontinence, Aristotle appeals to certain endoxa in order "to show a priori that there is no use for the expression 'doing what is wrong in the full knowledge of what is right in the given circumstances' ." Owen does not elaborate on these claims at any length; and it would be easy, in the light of current doubts about the coherence of the analytic-synthetic distinction and its value for epistemology, to ignore his proposals. After all, there is no direct evidence that Aristotle recognized a class of analytic statements. He has no term for our 'analytic,' and he never explicitly attempts to justify belief in any class of statements on the ground that they hold simply in virtue of linguistic conventions which fix the meanings of terms and. so can be known a priori. But there are various reasons why the suggestion deserves consideration that appeal to endoxa is epistemi . cally significant, in some cases at least, because the endoxa reflect established forms of language and are thereby analytic and known a priori with certainty. [Bolton 220]

It might be suggested in defense of Owen on this point that Aristotle wants to argue that the body of common or accredited opinion on a subject fixes the reference of the name of the subject in such a way that it is a logical presupposition of successful reference to that subject that most, and the most intelligible parts to us, of that body of opinion are not false of that subject or, more strongly, are explained by the basic principles of that subject. [221]

In his own discussions of reference Aristotle does suppose that there is some most intelligible opinion which at least sometimes has this kind of reference fixing status, namely the opinion expressed in the "account of what the name signifies."" Interestingly enough, this type of opinion can play for Aristotle the role of being one which appropriate theoretical principles must explain on pain of failure of reference and hence failure of truth for those principles. To take a familiar example from Posterior Analytics II.8-10, Aristotle supposes that our belief that 'thunder is a certain noise in the clouds' serves as the belief by grasp of which our thought is fixed on to the real thing thunder in such a way that that fact must be true, and explained by the fundamental principles of meteorology. (93a21-9 with 94a7-9) A similar example from Paris of Animals II.3 explicitly employs semantic terminology. [221]

It is clear that blood is hot in the following way, namely as something in the being of blood. Blood is said to be hot in the same way as something would be if we were to signify by its name that it is seething hot water. But blood is not hot in respect of its permanent substance (hupokeimenon). So in one way it is hot essentially (kath haulo) in another way it is not. For heat belongs in our account of it in the way in which white belongs in our account of the white man; but insofar as blood takes on heat as an accidental affection (pathos),36 it is not essentially hot. (649b21-27, cf. 649a13-20) [221-222]

Here Aristotle makes it clear again that in the account of what we · signify by a name a certain group of the features which we take to belong to what the name denotes will be included. He also makes it clear that the features which are included in the account of what we signify by a name may be features naturally present and whose presence is explicable. For instance, the mention of heat is included in the account of what we signify by the name 'blood,' even though heat is not ' ' ' ' ' a part of the fundamental essence of blood. Nevertheless blood is naturally heated up, particularly by the heart, in the course of its production for the sake of nourishment and growth, and it is in looking for the explanation of this that we find the real nature of blood. (650a2 ff, Juv. et Sen. 469bl2 ff)

 

 

As noted above, the current philosophical climate is less hospitable now than it was when Owen wrote to appeals to what is analytic and know a priori on that ground; and this has led to greater caution in attributing appeals to the analytic to historical figures. So il'is perhaps unsurprising that more recent writers working within Owen's framework have shifted ground somewhat and argued that while the force of dialectical argument does not depend ultimately on the appeal to what is analytic and in that way absolutely a priori, it may involve an appeal to what is a priori in a different way. [224]

The suggestion has recently been made in various quarters that the value of the appeal to endoxa derives from the fact that the endoxa for Aristotle are not to be understood as a set of convictions which may or may not correspond to some belief-independent objective reality where independent evidence may be sought for their truth or falsity. "Aristotle does not make the clean separation between evidence and opinion on which this [position] presumes." The endoxa are, rather, a set of convictions which, at least when properly refined, "hang together to constitute a world" in such a way that, ultimately, the accord of any beliefs with these convictions is "criteria of their truth.""

A typical development of this approach begins with the suggestion that, for Aristotle, the endoxa are simply one sub-class of the phainomena (the appearences) where the phainomena are to be understood as constituting the world as it exists for us.

The phainomena, so understood, may of course conflict but in resolving any conflicts, on this view, we must square our results with the phainomena and show that these results preserve the phainomena as true, or at least that the greatest number and the most basic are preserved. In deciding which are most basic or authoritative, on this proposal, Aristotle considers our actual practices in justification to see, in different areas, what judges we in fact rely on. This reliance, however, does not itself require further justification for him.

The reason for this is that "appearances and truth are not opposed, as Plato believed they were. We can have truth only inside the circle of appearances, because only there can we communicate, even refer, at all."

This does not absolutely prohibit the introduction of new views but it does require that any new view draw on and preserve beliefs which are "deeper" than the ones which the new view forces us to give up - depper in that "the cost of giving them up would be greater, or one we are less inclined to pay."

Given this, we can see how certain endoxa, those which are deepest or most endoxon, can be in a way a priori, by being "unrevisable, relative to a certain body of knowledge" or even so basic that they "cannot significantly be questioned at all from within the appearances, that is to say the lives and practices of human beings, as long as human beings are anything like us."

This view has many of the same advantages in accounting for what Aristotle says about dialectic and, in particular, peirastic as those listed earlier for Owen's view. If peirastic argues ultimately from premises which are constitutive of reality and impossible for us to intelligibly question, then that would explain why its premises are true and known and accepted (at least implicitly) by everyone. Moreover, these advantages are achieved on this view, without the difficulties which come with the introduction of the notion of analyticity in interpreting Aristotle. 

1. However, the view would still not account for how it is that the premises of peirastic in particular are consequent on, and explained by, the first principles of the various sciences

2. Aristotle takes it that in science the data of perception always take precedence over endoxa without reference to how widely held or how deeply entrenched those endoxa are.

3. there is a procedure for the justification of first principles in science which goes beyond the matter of their ability to preserve or their inferability from what is most endoxon.

In general, his doctrine is that such principles must exhibit and conform to what is most intelligible s1mply or by nature by contrast with what is most intelligible to us. This requires, as is reflected in his discussion of peirastic, that these principles must be capable of explaining the appropriate endoxa on some subject rather than simply preserving them or being coherent with or derivable from them.