Fakulta filozofická; Katedra románských jazyků

22.2.2019, 10.30, Mgr. Karolína Jiráková - “Double Origins” (archai). Focus on Aristotle's Theory of Scientific Knowledge.

The first principles or origins (archai) can be considered as a core of Aristotle's methodological and epistemological program. If we search knowledge in any area of human activity (i.e. praxis, poiesis, theoria, cf. Met. VI, 1, 1025b25), we need to reach these origins. Aristotle's emphasis on superiority of general terms on the one hand (cf. Met. VII, 16, 1040b5-10) and the research tradition on the other, leads to a tendency to understand the principle or origin just as a result of the way of knowing, as a reasoned knowledge. To review this tendency leads Aristotle himself. At several places he reminds us that the principles or origins are “double” in a certain way. The origins are either “closer to us” or “closer to nature” (cf. Phys. I, 1, 184a16-18, De an. II, 2, 413a11-12). The relation between these origins is rather than a shift between ignorance and knowledge a shift between different levels of knowledge. In my paper I offer specific interpretation of Aristotle's scientific methodology. I put great emphasis on the origins connected with the beginning of the cognitive process, on starting points of inquiry. Between the origins as starting points and the origins as results is a specific dialectical relationship. Origins as starting points are not abandoned by the formulation of results. They are incorporated into the result. Even more origins as starting points are important as a test of achieved results (i.e. test of good definition). This interpretation can be supported not only by Aristotle's methodologist opinions but also by own Aristotle's research.