2. Knowledge from Confused to Distinct: Aristotle's Epistemology

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

The Progression from Confused to Distinct Knowledge #

Aristotle establishes that human knowledge naturally progresses from confused (indistinct) to distinct understanding. “Confused” means indistinct but not mistaken—we grasp something truly but without distinguishing its parts or specific characteristics. This principle underlies why we should study natural things in general before studying them in particular.

Three Types of Examples #

1. Sensible Composed Wholes

• We perceive wholes before distinguishing their parts
• Hearing: The three dances in Don Giovanni’s ballroom scene are heard as one combined sound initially; we do not distinguish the individual instruments at first
• Vision: Viewing a painting as a whole before noticing details; standing back to see an entire painting before examining particulars
• The example of a painting’s eyes seeming to follow you, creating the illusion of life

2. Intelligible Composed Wholes

• Moving from naming to defining; we name things before we can define them
• A child recognizes a circle and can identify circular objects but cannot articulate the definition: “a plane figure contained by one line, every point of which is equidistant from a point in the interior called the center”
• We read sonnets before we can define what a sonnet is
• We can identify a nose but cannot define it as “an organ with two nostrils”
• Parents may use words correctly without being able to define them when asked

3. More Universal Sensibles

• Perceiving something in general before identifying it in particular (in place, distance, or time)
• Columbus’s sailors seeing “something” on the horizon before determining whether it is land, a whale, a cloud, or floating vegetation
• Seeing a ship on the horizon before knowing if it is friendly or pirate
• Identical twins: knowing them as “Van Valkenburg girls” in general before distinguishing Judy from Mary Jane individually
• The Superman example: “It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s Superman!” shows hesitation before distinct recognition; we see something moving in the sky before determining what it is
• Children calling all men “father” and all women “mother” before learning to distinguish particular individuals
• A child confused by seeing a stranger and thinking them to be their parent

Key Arguments #

The Relationship Between General/Particular and Confused/Distinct #

• The general is to the particular as a whole is to its parts
• The general is a universal whole—it contains many things as parts but is not composed from them in the way a physical whole is composed from its physical parts
• Greek word kathalou (general) derives from kata (according to) and holos (whole)
• English word “particular” derives from “part,” showing the linguistic connection to the conceptual relationship

What is More Known to Us vs. What is More Knowable #

• More known to us = what we are more certain about = the confused/general
• More knowable (in itself) = what is more fully or perfectly known = the distinct/particular
• Wine example: We are more certain something is “dry red wine” than that it is “Cabernet Sauvignon,” and more certain of “Cabernet Sauvignon” than “Napa Valley Cabernet.” Yet Napa Valley Cabernet is more fully known when we possess that precise knowledge.
• In measurements: we are more certain a board is “longer” than we are of its exact measurement; more certain of “between 150-250 pounds” than “exactly 196 pounds”
• This creates a paradox: what is more certain to us is less fully known, and what is more fully known is less certain to us

The Reason: Human Knowledge Develops from Imperfect to Perfect #

• Our senses and reason are able to know before they actually know; we move from potentiality to actuality
• We proceed from ignorance to imperfect knowledge to perfect knowledge, not all at once but gradually
• Aristotle compares the human mind to a blank page that gradually fills up, or a glass being gradually filled
• This principle applies to all education: physical, aesthetic, moral, and intellectual

Important Definitions #

Confused (indistinct) knowledge: Knowledge that grasps something truly but without distinguishing its parts or characteristics. Not mistaken, but incomplete.

Distinct knowledge: Precise, detailed knowledge that articulates the specific characteristics, parts, definition, or particularity of something.

General/Universal: What applies to many things; the whole that takes in many particulars as parts.

Particular: A specific instance or individual member of a universal; a part of the general whole.

Knowable: What is fully or perfectly known in itself.

More known to us: What we are more certain about or more confident in our knowledge of; what is less subject to doubt for us.

Examples & Illustrations #

Sensory Perception #

• Painting in a museum: Standing back to see the whole before examining details; noticing details requires moving closer and studying specific areas
• Painting with following eyes: A painting (mentioned as a cheap dollar print from Whistler of a canal scene) where the eyes seem to follow you as you move, creating the illusion of life
• Classroom exercise: A professor showed students a famous painting of the Blessed Virgin for 50 minutes to describe; most students only saw basic elements like “blue” without capturing the composition or meaning

Recognition and Identification #

• Identical twins (Judy and Mary Jane Van Valkenburg): First-grade classmates could easily distinguish them; a new teacher in the next grade could not tell them apart and had to use a seating chart; the twins could switch dates without the boys noticing; required study and familiarity to distinguish
• Different races: “Every Chinaman looks the same” but vice versa, we look all the same to them; people who know a particular race well can distinguish individuals while others cannot
• Adopted children: Berquist can tell if a child is adopted but cannot determine if an adopted Asian child is Chinese, Japanese, or Korean

Aesthetic Education #

• Literature: Reading 150 sonnets before being able to define “sonnet” (“a likeness of thought and feeling in 14 lines of iambic pentameter, divided into three quatrains with alternate rhyming, and completed by a rhyming couplet”)
• Music (personal experience): As a boy, seeking marches on the radio during WWII; still liking marches but recognizing Mozart symphonies and The Magic Flute contain more to hear; initially listening to The Magic Flute without hearing anything; gradually realizing more through repeated listening; now playing Mozart almost exclusively
• Visual art: A child prefers simple drawings in a children’s book to great paintings in a museum, but great paintings offer unlimited returns in seeing more

Moral and Spiritual Development #

• Childhood preferences: Preferring hot dogs to fine cuisine; preferring soda pop to wine (the taste example of dry red wine tasting bitter at first)
• Post-WWII dialogue: Eisenhower and Russian General Zhukov discussing whether working for the common good (Russia) is more noble than working for private profit (America); Eisenhower unable to answer directly because one cannot say the private good is better than the common good, yet people must be led from the private good to the common good
• Businessman’s development: A businessman begins in the Chamber of Commerce for business community benefit and his own company benefit; gradually develops a love of the city’s good apart from personal benefit; continues civic work even after retirement
• St. Rose of Lima: A young man attracted first to her outward beauty; through knowing her, she became his spiritual director and guide; led from attraction to external beauty toward recognition of interior virtue
• Socrates in Plato’s Symposium: Considered the ugliest man in Athens externally; transformed into the handsomest through recognition of interior virtue and wisdom

Literary Examples #

• Beauty and the Beast: A lesson in not judging by outward appearance; learning to recognize interior value
• Portia’s description (Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice): “Belmont is a lady richly left… And she is fair. And fairer than that fair, of wondrous virtue.” Shows progression from wealth, to bodily beauty, to spiritual virtue

Notable Quotes #

“Now when the person says, ‘it’s a bird, it’s a plane, no, it’s Superman,’ what are they seeing? Are they seeing Superman at first? No. They’re seeing something flying or going through the sky… Their hesitation there shows that they don’t yet know distinctly what it is going through the sky.”

“What is more known to me, and therefore more certain, right, is actually what is less known to me.”

“To know something in a confused way is to still be somewhat in the dark, isn’t it? As you go from the confused towards the distinct, it’s like going from darkness towards light.”

“In any kind of education, you are developing something, right? And therefore, you’re going from the imperfect towards the perfect, right?”

Questions Addressed #

Q: How does the principle of confused-before-distinct apply to our initial perception? A: We first perceive wholes without distinguishing their parts. In hearing, we hear the three dances of Don Giovanni as one unified sound; in vision, we see a painting as a whole before noticing details. The whole, though composed of parts, is known to us before we distinguish the parts.

Q: Why can we name things before we define them? A: We have confused knowledge of things—we know them in a general, indistinct way sufficient to recognize and name them. Distinct knowledge, which definition requires, comes later through reasoning and analysis. A child knows a circle is “a circle” but cannot articulate its geometric definition.

Q: How does the principle of “more general sensible” relate to the other two kinds of examples? A: All three kinds of examples show the same progression: from what is less distinguished to what is more distinguished. The more universal sensible (seeing a ship before knowing if it’s friendly) is most like what Aristotle ultimately wants to show: that we know things in general before we know them in particular.

Q: What does it mean that what is more known to us is less knowable? A: “More known to us” means more certain, more confident—we know it with less doubt. “More knowable” means more fully or perfectly known in itself. What we are most sure about (dry red wine) is actually less fully known than what is more knowable (Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon), which is less certain to us. This appears paradoxical but reflects how human knowledge develops gradually.