The Eighth and Ninth Premises | Part I, Chapter 73 (11) | Guide for the Perplexed 166 (Auto Translated)

The Eighth Premise: Denial of Natural Forms in the Kalam System

Introduction and General Context

We are reading the Eighth Premise. Last time we studied the Seventh, which was about how absences also exist.

Now the Eighth, and as I’ve heard, all these premises — one could say the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth — are essentially details that in some sense were already included in how he described the atomism system of the Kalam, but he emphasizes certain details more. And I think he constantly emphasizes also in order to extract from it what comes out absurd in their system. That’s how I read it, perhaps I’m not correct, and it’s found simply in order to describe, but that’s how I — it seems to me that he always strives to reach the point where it becomes truly absurd, and this is almost in itself a kind of refutation. He doesn’t enter into refuting it, but he does want to describe it to the level where it sounds very strange at least.

So the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Premises are details of this type, and then the Tenth Premise he extracts the epistemological conclusion essentially, one could also say the metaphysical or physical conclusion of the entire atomism system, which is the matter of possibility, what he calls transference. I don’t know if we’ll get to that today, but there he evaluates greatly and enters into several deep investigations upon which depends his dispute with them or Aristotle’s dispute with them.

The Text of the Eighth Premise

We are at the Eighth Premise, and I’ve edited this here, so I can read.

The Eighth Premise states that nothing exists except substance and accident.

And the emphasis here that I emphasized is on the word except — that there is nothing in existence besides substance and accident, which in their terms is the atom and the accidents of the atom, the particular substance — that’s all that exists.

The Central Point: Denial of Natural Forms

And the important point, the important thing that this negates, is that natural forms are also accidents.

What is a Natural Form?

There is something called a natural form, we need to remember for this — I don’t know where he gave us a specific definition of this — but what we call a natural form, which is in contrast to a non-natural form, or what we call an artificial form (artificial from the word craft, not from the word fictitious), which is essentially the foundation of Aristotle’s physics and metaphysics, which says that there are things in the world that have a certain nature. Nature is what the thing is — simply a word for the essence of the thing, what we call the essence, what it is.

And this is something that exists, which is what the thing is. If you see a tree, that it is made in a way — it acts in certain ways and it is made in certain ways and it works in certain ways that a tree acts — this is called the natural form of a tree. One can say this about two things.

Distinction Between Natural Form and External Form

In contrast also to its external form, the Rambam calls this in Chapter 1 tavnit — the shape of it, I don’t know how to say shape — that it is made in a certain way, or that this is essentially one of its accidents. This is not its natural form, this is form, we call this form in a lighter way. We can sometimes call this form, and perhaps also in Torah, and also philosophically, sometimes we call form how a thing looks and in what way it is built, but this is not the natural form, this is external form, as it’s called, or visible form.

Distinction Between Natural Form and Artificial Form

The natural form, and this is also the opposite of artificial form — if I cut from a tree and make from it a table, then this is not the natural form of the table, this is an artificial form that the table acquired.

And then to say that the form of the table is a kind of accident in relation to it being wood, there is in this some point of truth, because I can turn the table into a chair and it doesn’t stop being wood, it stops being a table. In this sense there is a form of table.

But natural forms are much stronger forms, they are forms that completely define what the thing is.

The Kalam Position: Denial of Natural Forms

Now, when the Kalam says that nothing exists except substance and accident, then they also — and this is quite explicit — Schwarz quotes here some Kalam adherent who says explicitly that the heretics, the Aristotelians, say that there is such a thing as nature, that there is such a thing as natural forms — exactly these words, the natural forms — and they say: no, there is no such thing as tree and there is no such thing as horse. There is only such a thing as a number of atoms that happen to have, they have the accidents that make them a horse, but that it is a horse, this itself is an accident of atoms. This is their system and he is going to explain this, he is going to detail this.

Explanation of the Premise: The Similar Atoms

And it is an explanation, this is the premise:

For all bodies according to them are composed of similar substances.

The word similar is a strange word here, as if I think it is not sufficiently understood. He means homogeneous, that is, made — they are not made, they are the same thing. The only difference between atom and atom in the Kalam system is, one could say, their number and location. It is simply another atom. This is not — so Aristotle calls this difference in number. It is not the same atom as the second atom, but it has all the characteristics, it has no characteristics, but what it is is exactly the same thing as every atom and every other atom in the universe. They are the same thing, perhaps they also differ in place, they are located in another place, but in terms of what they are, they are all the same thing.

As we explained in the first premises — as this was the first, second, third premise, perhaps especially the first, he already said this.

The Accidents are the Only Difference

And they differ from one another only in accidents, nothing else.

The only difference that changes one atom from another atom is only the accidents that apply to them.

The Meaning: The Concept of Accident in Kalam Differs from Aristotle

Which means now like this, that what they call accident is something very different, or results in something very different from what Aristotle calls accident.

Because Aristotle says: there is such a thing as natural form. Natural form is not on the side of accident, it is on the side of substance. Natural form is something that relates to substance, and of course its substance is not an atom, it is the complete thing, and therefore it is appropriate that it should have a nature, a certain form, which is its natural form, it is its true form.

The Defining Distinction: Substance and Accident

And the definer, also for Aristotle and in some sense also here, the definer of substance and accident is that the accident is the thing that you can change or remove and the thing remains what it is. If you change the color of a donkey, it remains a donkey but with another color. If you change its donkeyness, then you take from it the donkeyness and whatever is not donkeyness — then this is its substance. Essentially this belongs to it, this is called form, and the form belongs to substance.

In Kalam: There is No Such Thing as Donkey

But the Kalam says: there is no such thing as donkey, there are only accidents.

And therefore it comes out that what they call accidents, they are also the things that are impossible without them. Or they simply deny the things — their things are simply the atoms. The atoms are the thing that theoretically it is possible to change their accidents without them changing. But all the accidents in the world, all the things in the world, are simply accidents. And this is the only thing that makes the difference between thing and thing.

Three Conclusions: Animality, Humanity, Sensation and Speech as Accidents

And therefore it comes out, and then he draws the conclusion:

And it will be — so it comes out that thus, he draws from this three conclusions. I think this foundation is the clear foundation, the foundation of atomism, that’s how it works. And from this the Rambam is going to extract three premises that are essentially different details of the same thing, of saying that therefore also the natural form comes out to be an accident.

So one thing:

And it is animality according to them — according to their opinion animality and humanity, that is humanity (not humanity in the sense of all human beings), humanity and sensation — that is sensation, the sensation, that an animal can sense — and speech — he means what we call human beings speaking, that is the power of reason.

All these are accidents like the blackness and whiteness and bitterness and sweetness.

The Implication: Denial of the Difference Between Accident and Form

So here we are reading the implication of their denial of forms regarding the difference between what Aristotle would call accident and what he would call form — which is a difference, a real difference.

The Example: Human Being

That is, and he gives a very, very famous example. If we take a human being — a human being is an example, Aristotle always starts with living things.

If we take a human being, we say what is a human being. A human being is at least two things, he is an animal and human. That is, not two things, but a human being is a kind of animal. An animal is a kind of thing. We have two levels of thing.

Now, what defines the animal? That it has life, vitality one could say, I don’t know if there is here a definition of what this is. And the animal is something that has a form of living. It could be that also plants have animality in this sense, perhaps this would be correct. If we can say that an— sorry, animals, in the sense of what we call animals…

The First Conclusion: Denial of Natural Forms and Species

The Hierarchy of Beings in Nature According to Aristotle

Because animals are things that also have sensation. There is another thing of movement, but here he as it were, this is not the subject matter for him, but I see that he takes this example, yes?

We look at the world, we see what we call inanimate, yes? Aristotle calls this minerals. Inanimate is, I don’t know what the translation of the mi is, like stones and metals and such things, which are a certain kind of thing, yes? This is a certain kind, a very basic kind, a very strong kind. This is not as the Kalam would say, that this is merely atoms that don’t have the accidents of life. There are living things, which is one of the primary categories, that is, there is a form of life, yes?

And afterward there is also, he doesn’t go in order here, but if I go afterward, there are also within living things, there are things like animals, that also have sensation, also feeling. He always translates feeling, the intention is not feeling in the sense of emotions, but in the sense of senses, yes? An animal is also a thing that has senses.

The Senses as Form, Not as Accident

Which is also, again, that an animal has senses, this is important. This is not its accident, yes? Because if you take from an animal the sense, yes, I’m not speaking about a sick animal, I’m speaking about the idea of animal, about the very seed of animal, then it simply stops being an animal, it becomes a plant. Or if you take from the plant its vitality, it stops being a plant.

This is not its accident. This is a kind of thing, there are in the world basically kinds of things that are alive, this doesn’t contradict that they are made of components, their matter is made of all kinds of components and so on, and also its form, it has a cause and it has an agent and all these things, but still there is such a thing called animal, there is such a thing called having sensation, which is another kind of animal, and there is humanity.

Humanity as a Combination of Formal Characteristics

And what is humanity? Humanity is the third thing, here he calls it four things, but humanity is of course simply an animal, it is a sensing being, a speaking being, this is called a human being, yes? This is called human.

The Kalam Position: Canceling the Distinction Between Form and Accident

So, but according to their opinion, all these things are accidents, all these are simply accidents. And what does it mean they are accidents? Like, they are at the same level, they are the same kind of thing, as we say, blackness, yes? The color or the taste of the thing, yes?

He simply gives two opposites of color and taste, blackness and whiteness and bitterness and sweetness, we all understand that this is not the form of the thing, this is the accident of the thing. They are accidents, they are things that change, and therefore they also have, one of the properties of many accidents at least is that they have opposition of this kind, not contradictions but oppositions. You can be a little black, a little white, a little bitter, a little sweet, this is a property of certain qualities or of certain accidents.

The Kalam Does Not Distinguish Between Types of Accidents

But according to the Kalam opinion there is no difference, there is no such thing as accident and form. The difference, one needs to think about this, it’s as if we divide the world in all kinds of ways. We, Aristotle, and this was a very primary work of Aristotle in the Categories and in such places, actually Physics, where he explains to us that there is this category of accident, which the Kalam stole from him, yes? He invented this.

But they didn’t understand it correctly, that is, they only used the very general category of accident, and they don’t distinguish between the kind of thing that distinguishes between what makes the thing into something and another kind of thing that doesn’t make the thing into something, but simply it is something carried on the thing, like its color or like its taste.

For them animality works in the same way, it is like. My translation fits, I would translate something like at the level of, that is in the same kind of categorical division of the world as whiteness, yes? To be alive is not another kind, yes?

The Intuitive Difference Between Form and Accident

There is here something very intuitive to say, that to say about a human being that he is alive is not the same kind of statement, yes, statement, category, category is simply a statement, to say about, like category. We say about, about a human being that he is an animal, this is not the same kind of statement as to say that he is white. But according to the Kalam, in the end it’s the same thing. Because it’s simply, he has the accident of whiteness, he has the accident of living.

The Conclusion: Denial of the Existence of Natural Species

And now there is another thing that comes out of this, a second thing, and it will be, sorry, and yes, and it will be a third thing, until it will be, yes, and from this until, as if, you, this is also a translation of learning Tibon, how can one perhaps translate something a bit more that flows, but he means something like, you follow this logic, and it comes out that the difference of this individual, this individual of the species, from an individual of another species, is like the difference of an individual from an individual of one species, yes?

Species as Natural Forms

Everything we call species, yes? Kinds of things in the world is something that works it is simply another definition of the concept of form, another way to say there are natural forms is to say there are natural species, that is what does natural species mean? Natural species is in very simple words that there is a difference, individual, here the intention is particular, individual, not necessarily man as human being, he means, but I can correct the example of human beings.

The idea of species says that there is another difference, of another kind, between me and a bear, than what there is between me and my friend who is also a human being. This is also something very normal in our language at least, perhaps in our perception of reality, to understand that there is such a difference.

Intra-Species Difference Versus Inter-Species Difference

When I say I and my friend are two kinds of human beings, this is not like I say I and the donkey are two kinds of animals. There is here some other kind of difference. The kind of difference, and according to Aristotle he will say like this, the difference between you and your friend, who is also a human being, is a difference in matter and not in form. Both of you participate in the human form, you are human, neither of you is more or less human, but you have, basically, you are made, you are human form that applies to another piece of matter. This is the fundamental thing that separates between two individuals of the same species in things that have matter.

I am a human being within this matter from which my body is formed, and you are a human being within your body. Or one can say, it is distinguished in accidents, which is already a less important distinction, a less fundamental opening, I am white and you are black.

But this is all a very different distinction, not another distinction, this is a distinction of another kind. These words, I and you are identical, yes? We are equal in that we are human beings, and differ in that we are not the same human being, yes? So this equality and difference, it has another meaning, despite it being the same word, from this that I say, I and the bear are both animals, but he is such a kind of animal.

Because the bear is already, it has another form. We differ not only in matter, it’s not that I am simply an animal in another matter. The difference between human and bear is not from their matter, yes? Yes, it’s not that the human being is made from this piece of matter and the bear is made from that other piece of matter, but the bear is simply another kind of thing, that is it has another form, yes.

The Implications of the Existence of Natural Species

So there is, and therefore there are many things that follow from this understanding that we understand, that there is such a thing as species, there is such a thing as kinds, kinds or species, and we say that to say within one species a difference is a different thing from saying a difference between species, yes, says or the accident, and the second is the difference of form.

The Kalam Denies the Existence of Species

And therefore, but according to the Kalam this is not correct. They deny the existence of species, yes? They deny that there is a difference. True, there is a difference, they can admit that this is a greater distance. As if, you count from a human being to his friend, there is a difference of 200 accidents, and human being and bear, there is a difference of 300 accidents, yes? Such things quantitatively as it were one can hear about them, but they don’t agree that there is a qualitative difference, that there is a real difference between the kind of difference of a human being within two particulars, within one species, and between species in general.

Therefore they deny the existence of species, and I think this is found here, they admit to this, these are not things they don’t admit to, but I think this is found here in order to bring us what comes out of this assumption, and why this is, intuitively this is strange.

The Natural Use of the Concept of Species

We naturally use ideas of species, yes? This is not some innovation of philosophy, that there are species. Of course, there is indeed a very large metaphysical question about the status, yes? The metaphysical standing of species. What does it mean that there are species? Apparently no one ever saw the human species, we only see human beings, and it’s not clear if there exists in reality this thing. Okay, that’s another question. But within, yes, the dispute of Aristotle and Plato, and many more details that there are in this, but basically this is the point.

Another Conclusion: The Implications for Other Parts of Reality

Yes, and now he draws from this another thing, and I think that this third thing that he says, it doesn’t at all, it doesn’t even add some logical detail that we didn’t know, he simply draws a conclusion, contains the same structure, the same conclusion about another part of reality, and it seems to me that he, this is another example that I think he brings this because he wants to show you how strange it is. And how strange it is also to the Kalam system, yes, also according to the branch.

The Second Conclusion: Equating All Levels of Reality

The Celestial Body, the Angels and the Throne of Glory — All are Atoms

The Rambam says something of a lesson: that the celestial body, yes, the body of the heavens — for the heavens are a body, this is agreed, yes, this is quite agreed. Also for Aristotle this is agreed, only that Aristotle thinks that the heavens are made of the fifth element, but it is still called having a body, at least according to the Rambam.

But here there is another thing: and also the body of the angels — the body of the angels, or the substance from which they are made — and even the body of the Throne of Glory according to what may be imagined. Apparently these two things he says this is imagined, because for according to the Rambam truly angels are not corporeal, and all the more so that the Throne of Glory is not corporeal, despite that… well, there are interpretations that the Rav hints to them that the Throne of Glory is itself the first heaven, but then this is perhaps a kind of corporeal.

“According to What May Be Imagined” — The Intention is to the Mutakallimun System

But he means according to what will be imagined, because the Mutakallimun are literalists, yes? They go according to the plain meaning of the Quran. In the Quran it is written there are angels, and they certainly deny the philosophers who say “ah, the angels are separate intellects and without wings.” No, the angels are with wings. And also the Throne of Glory, they think that truly it is some physical thing of a certain kind, yes?

So according to what seems to them — that is, according to what they imagine in their system, which is not a true system, because the angels and the Throne of Glory are not corporeal, and therefore even if we were atomists we would not say they are made from those atoms. But according to your system, that angels do have a body, and the Throne of Glory is also a body — a created body, it is a very emanated body, very exalted etc., but still a body.

One who reads people like Saadia Gaon sees that they write this quite explicitly — they think that angels are fundamentally made from the same kind of thing as we are.

The Cancellation of Ontological Hierarchy

It turns out that you look — the Rambam here honors for us things that everyone agrees to, and especially religious people who believe in a certain hierarchy in the universe, between heaven and earth. But according to your view it turns out that the heavens and the angels and the Throne of Glory and body, any worm you want from the worms of the earth or any plant you want — all are one substance.

It turns out that there is no real difference between the Throne of Glory and a worm. Both are from atoms, only this one has an accident that it is the Throne of Glory, this one has an accident that it is an angel, this one has an accident that it is a worm and not a man etc.

Is This a New Premise or a Conclusion?

This, yes, as I said, this doesn’t add anything here. They say yes, yes, yes, but the Rambam simply — and therefore he brings here according to what seems to them, yes? If you were a Rambam who doesn’t believe in corporeal angels, then this is even less of a difficulty, because angels are not the same kind of thing. But they don’t believe in created beings of this type, yes?

Al-Ghazali and the Negation of Intermediary Angels

It’s not clear — I did see, Wolfson speaks about this, that at least al-Ghazali denied the angels. That is, he believed there are angels, it’s written in the Quran that there are angels, but he didn’t believe in angels that intermediate, yes? Angels of the type of the Rambam that are movers of spheres or some such thing, that intermediates between God and creation — because this is the whole foundation of their system here, that they intermediate.

So the idea that there are fixed angels, you could call it, or angels that fundamentally intermediate between people and prophets or between the actions in the world, as the Rambam claims — they actually deny this explicitly. But they still think there are angels.

But their angels are like all things. Actually when the Torah says that the angel does, this is also a kind of lie, because an angel doesn’t do anything. God does both the angel and its action in one breath, yes? Just as He does all things. So why is there an angel? Fine, it’s a custom, exactly like all the customs in the world. There’s no problem with that. The angel has no real function just as nothing has real causality.

And he brought — I saw that in Wolfson’s book he actually brings that this is how they interpret the matter of angels.

The Absurdity: No Difference Between Angel and Worm

But in any case the Rambam simply makes you notice that this is something strange. What, so angels are the same thing as me? There’s nothing to being an angel, there’s no hierarchy here, there’s no heaven, there’s no heaven and earth. It’s written in the Torah heaven and earth — that is, it’s just, it seems that the heavens are more exalted, but there’s no real difference.

Comparison to Aristotle’s and the Rambam’s System

The Rambam very much — whereas the system of the Rambam, and especially Aristotle, who really divides between heaven and earth, he holds that they have a different nature, yes? Really, they have matter of one type and form of another type, yes? There is a nature of another type in the heavens and the earth. And he actually very much fits the religious intuition, the biblical, the Quranic, whatever, that speaks about heaven and earth and angels.

And the Mutakallimun system is actually very modern in this sense, yes? There is here a very deep equalization between all the levels in the world, and the Rambam thinks that in a way, on its face it is absurd to assume such equalization at such a level.

Summary of the Eighth Premise

Yes, and the substances of all, and indeed they differ in accidents not in anything else, and the substances of all are separate substances — we are all made from the same things, and there is no difference between them, except the accidents, that the accidents are the thing that don’t persist, and that God creates every moment etc. This is what they say, yes? Until here he doesn’t… this is their system.

—

The Ninth Premise — Accidents Do Not Bear Other Accidents

Okay? Let’s continue a bit, I won’t elaborate here, but let’s continue a bit, because there is here a ninth premise, which is also, yes? Actually, as I said, I don’t think there’s an innovation here. I don’t think that we, in other words, we could have deduced all that is written in this eighth premise from the first premises, the fifth and sixth and fourth. There’s nothing additional here, except expression, articulation of this conclusion that negates the natural forms.

The Three Conclusions from the Cancellation of Natural Forms

And he deduces from this according to my count three things that follow from the cancellation, from the negation of natural forms which are:

One — that there is no difference between, there is no, yes, there is something problematic here because we, after all even if you don’t agree with all the Aristotelian categorization, you are also likely to understand immediately that there is some difference between saying “he is a human” and saying “he is black,” yes? It’s not exactly the same thing. The system of categories is built on this, and according to their view it’s the same thing.

And the second thing — that we don’t, that there’s also no difference between saying “he is Reuven” and saying “he is a donkey,” yes? Or that he is a human and not a donkey, yes? It’s the same type of predication.

And the same thing, the third thing that comes out — that there’s no difference between saying “he is an angel” and saying “he is a star.” There’s no such thing as angel, there is an angel in being a star, that by accident the star has such qualities, in such accidents, but there’s no such thing as star. And therefore fundamentally we’re all atoms and we’re all equal, we’re all atoms under the rule of Allah, yes? There’s no difference.

The Ninth Premise: Another Necessary Foundation

Now there’s another thing that is also — the ninth premise is another thing that is in some sense some necessary foundation for the previous premises. Yes, the ninth premise, let’s continue.

The Text: Negation of Bearing Accidents Upon Accidents

The ninth premise, it said that the accidents will not bear some of them upon others, yes? They say that it’s not possible for one accident to be the substrate for a second accident, yes?

The idea of bearing is predication, yes? Predication there is logical predication, there is natural predication, yes? If I say that a human is white, then I say there is a human and this human is white, yes? Or as they hold a kind of such bearing regarding substance and accident, yes?

The Problem of Privation and Creation

When we say God creates, then our language also works this way, He creates something, yes? Therefore they — there is here some problem, what is the thing that He created, yes? If it’s really something from nothing, then He didn’t create something. The Mutakallimun actually get entangled in this, because their imagination always works this way, in terms of substance and accident.

We already spoke that they got a bit entangled in the matter of privation, yes? How can God destroy things, what things will He destroy, and how will the accident of privation persist in a thing that is already not a thing etc.

The Foundation of Bearing: Substance and Accident

And in any case, but this is the idea of bearing, yes? Of predication, a thing is upon something, yes? This is the foundation that is agreed upon here, this is actually agreed upon also by Aristotle that there is — this is the whole principle of substance and accident. Let’s talk about this.

The Innovation: An Accident Cannot Be Borne Upon an Accident

But they said, they add here something, yes? This is what they add, yes? They add yes, similar to the previous premise — also in the previous premise we also say there is substance and accident, but Aristotle’s substance is not the same substance as theirs, and therefore Aristotle’s substance is actually with natural form, but they think there is only substance and accident and no natural form.

And in a different sense, in an analogous way, Aristotle also believes there are things that bear part of them upon others, that are borne upon other things, yes. You can remove the whiteness from the human, and you cannot remove the human from the whiteness, you cannot, yes, yes, it depends on this. There is here a one-sided, unidirectional dependence.

The Mutakallimun System: Only Substance Bears Accidents

But they said this way, that the accidents will not bear some of them upon others, yes. That when they divided the world in a very basic way into substance and accident, they also decided that substance is the only thing that can be the substrate for something else, and an accident must always be directly upon that substance. And he explains this why.

But first what do they say? And they will not say that this accident is borne upon another accident, and the other upon the substance. We do say this.

Example: The Luster of Color — An Accident of an Accident

For example, there are really things, Aristotle speaks about really such examples, the Rambam later when speaking about time brings a really extreme example of this type. Yes, for example, the luster of color, yes? Color has a certain luster, yes? Color can be matte or shiny, yes? Glossy.

Now, the luster of the color is an accident of the accident. This is an example, Aristotle’s example, of the accident of the accident, yes. Color is a thing that is borne upon the object that it colors, and the luster of the color is a type, you could say a type of color, but it’s another thing, it’s another property. There is color that has luster.

Explanation of the Premise: Negation of an Accident Borne Upon an Accident

The Hierarchical Structure of Reality in the Regular Conception

We can say what happens to a human who has a certain height, yes? I don’t know if this will work. But the previous example is certainly an accident of an accident, but there are many more such things, yes? Like there are, there are, what I said, if the definition of accident is the thing that you take this from the thing and it doesn’t get cancelled, then there are many levels of this, yes?

I, if you speak about, take a very simple example, yes? I know, that I will be, yes, if we, this will be more complicated, but let’s speak generally, that I am in a certain place, this is my accident, yes? Yes, I can be in another place and I don’t become something else. And now that I am in one place, I can be in a certain relation to this place, yes, I can be satisfied with the place or not satisfied with the place, the place can be big for me or small for me, which is a relation, relation is one of the categories, but no, it’s a category of accident. So this is the accident of the accident, yes, and many more things.

The world is actually built in a very hierarchical way of this type, yes, there is what of the thing, the human is an animal, a rational animal, yes, a rational animal, and you can, your rationality can be in such a way and in such a way, and have such a deficiency for such a thing, and such a deficiency for such a thing, and many more things roof upon roof of accidents upon accidents. This is a normal thing, yes? And it works, if you look at the world, then it seems this works. If you look at accidents as belonging to large objects, yes, to the whole thing.

The Mutakallimun Position: All Accidents Are Borne Directly Upon Substance

But they don’t say this. And let’s see why they don’t say this. They will not say that this accident is borne upon another accident, and the other upon the substance, but the accidents all indeed are borne in primary bearing upon the substance equally.

Because they say that all the substances are these individual atoms, the separate substances, then there cannot be an accident of their generality, because generality doesn’t exist, and also there cannot be an accident of an accident.

The First Reason: Logical and Temporal Dependence

Why? And they say this way, and it fled from this, what is the reason? Why do they actually flee from saying there is an accident of the accident? Theoretically, I said all kinds of things that fit this, because they believe only in these individual atoms, so they have much less upon which to say, to place the accidents of the accidents. If I say, the size, that the thing has some size, and there is, this is an accident, this size behaves in a certain way, they don’t believe in size at all, because there are only the smallest atoms.

But they have a logical argument, a basic argument against this idea. And it fled from this, why do they flee from saying this? Because it would necessitate that that other accident would not be found in the substance except after the precedence of the first accident. Yes? Because an accident of an accident, this means that this accident depends on the first accident, and it seems they think that also that this must be precedence in time, yes? This is how it seems in the second reason that he is going to give.

The word “after” has here two meanings and the first is that generally Aristotle says before and after have at least two meanings, one meaning is as logical order and second is as temporal order. When we say an accident of an accident we at least mean in the logical sense, yes, as I say, the luster of the color cannot exist without the color, and the color cannot exist without the thing that it colors.

The Second Reason: Preserving Divine Free Will

Yes, now, they have a fundamental problem with this idea of an accident that depends on a first accident. Why? He says thus, and they will prevent by this in some of the accidents, I need to check why some, why not all apparently this comes out. Why, because I don’t know, maybe they have a certain example that is like this. Let’s check. And they will prevent by this in some of the accidents, I say some, I don’t know. Why? And they will want that there be found the possibility of existence of some of the accidents in some substance at some time without any other accident, one accident, accompanying it, according to what they see that the accidents all are what individuate it.

The Concept of Individuation

Yes, they say individuation is the word that we will encounter many more times later, yes? Yes, individuation is the same thing as what distinguishes between substance and substance, yes? What makes this into something, yes? This is what they call to individuate something, yes?

The Theological Foundation: Everything Can Be Anything

Now, after all the Kalam, as we will see in the tenth premise, which we won’t study today, their foundation, which the Rambam claims that for it they actually invented the whole atomistic system, or even if for it, is that everything can be anything else, yes? That is, what is a thing? There is no thing. Every atom can be anything, yes? If God wants tomorrow He will turn the ant under my table into a star, yes? Or into an angel, or into the Throne of Glory. What is the Throne of Glory? Atoms that have the accident of being the Throne of Glory. And there is no reason that individuates, there is nothing that individuates the atoms of the Throne of Glory to be the Throne of Glory.

Maybe there is a law that it’s forbidden to change the… just thought. That there is a law that it’s forbidden to some descent in holiness and ascent, it’s forbidden to make the atom of the Throne of Glory be the atom of an ant. But fine, this is a question whether God keeps the laws. But it’s also not clear how this law works, yes? This law assumes a certain continuity in matter, yes? If you, you have a stone that you consecrated to the Temple, you don’t make that stone into a bathroom tomorrow, yes? And at least as normal people who wrote the law didn’t believe that every accident is new every moment, because then there wouldn’t need to be a problem. Of course you can answer this, that it’s according to custom, but I’m just showing that normal people think this way.

The Problem Created by Dependence Between Accidents

In any case, they very much want, they very much need this possibility, that everything can be anything by God’s will, yes? And therefore there is here a problem, yes? Because once you say that one accident is needed for another accident, yes? The luster of the color, the color is needed for its luster, then God cannot put luster suddenly in another thing. That is, this is the whole meaning of saying that this depends on that, that this is not possible, it’s not logical and not possible without this, yes?

I can say maybe, yes, maybe this enters here a bit, but I can imagine that God will insert luster, I don’t know, without color. The truth is it’s not clear to me how I can imagine this. Because luster is a type of color, yes? Heavy color, or I don’t know, all kinds of such things.

Possible Solutions and the Difficulty in Imagination

Not in all of them. Maybe in all of them you can imagine there will be a miracle so to speak, that there will be the same thing that is an accident of an accident in another thing, and in many things it’s hard to imagine this. Maybe because of this there is the “some.” Because this dependence seems an important dependence, a real dependence, a logical dependence so to speak. It’s not logical, not possible to even imagine. Later in the tenth premise we’ll see the difference between imagining this and thinking about it.

But even to imagine, you cannot imagine something without color that has the luster of color, like, I don’t know what it would be, what it would be at all. Maybe you can imagine it well, but other examples certainly it will be very hard to imagine, and because they very much need this, they need after all that God can do anything, anything, anything, all the time, and therefore they need to believe that there is no such thing as an accident borne upon an accident. Accidents are always directly upon the substance, and therefore they deny this that the luster is of the color. The luster is of the atom.

What, but isn’t this its meaning? I don’t know, they have some answer to the problem that this is its meaning. That is they have an answer to all the things. God makes luster, usually makes this only in color, but why doesn’t He ever make this in another thing? This is His custom. I don’t know, it’s hard for me how this will work, but things of this type need to work.

A Possible Solution: Uniting Two Accidents Into One

In any case, this is the thing they wanted and they want that only the accident, yes, the one accident is what individuates, this is not such a big difficulty, because we can of course say that God, there are accidents that always go together, yes, something like this, or He makes, or you can turn these two things into one accident, you can deny that the second accident is actually a separate thing, maybe it’s the same thing as the first, and there are simply two types, yes? I can instead of saying that the luster is found on the color, I can say there are two types of color, there is color that shines and color that doesn’t shine. Like, you can answer this, and maybe there are examples that are harder to answer this, and therefore I need to look what are the examples they spoke about in this thing.

The Connection to Previous Premises: Negation of Accidents of Generalities

But I think this is also something that follows from what we found at the base of what we already learned. We learned a lot about this that there are no accidents of generality, there is never an accident of the form, of the thing itself. There is no such thing as an accident of table. That the atom is a table is an accident that applies to each and every atom of it, yes? And why can’t there be an accident of the table? Exactly for this reason, because table is an accident and there cannot be an accident of an accident, yes?

So the negation of the accident of the accident is certainly a thing that establishes many of the things we already said. If there were a possibility to be an accident of an accident, then many of the problems we had and many of the somewhat strange things that were said could have been gotten rid of but they have a principled opposition to the concept of accident of an accident and therefore they cannot do this and we already mentioned this also earlier this thing.

And there is another reason from other aspects also there is another reason why they cannot make an accident of an accident

The Second Argument: An Accident Is Not Borne Upon an Accident

The Argument from Time

The subject upon which the borne will be borne needs to always exist one measure of time.

Difficulty in the Argument: Not All Precedence Is Temporal Precedence

If we say, yes, here there is — I’m not sure if this is a good argument, because not all precedence is precedence of time. Here he speaks as if there is precedence in time, first there needs to be a table and then it will have color, but it doesn’t work this way, after all once there is a table there is color.

But maybe there are other things that are like this, or how they imagine the idea of atoms, it turns out that this is always temporal precedence, I don’t know. Don’t know, maybe they actually imagined that in the creation of the world God makes only atoms and then gave them accidents? There is here some lack of understanding on my part, I don’t know why they need the times.

The Connection to the Sixth Premise

But this is what they said, that it needs to exist for one unit of time, and if the accident doesn’t endure for two time units according to them — yes, that was the seventh premise, yes, that the accident doesn’t endure for two time units, or the sixth, sorry, the sixth premise was that the accident doesn’t endure for two time units, the will of the heart for two periods, two units of time — then how could, on this basis, it bear its degradation, yes?

The Difficulty in the Temporal Argument

Of course one could say that God does this all at once, so once again there’s something strange here. But they mainly argue that at least in certain cases they claimed that time is needed, that it needs to hold for some time, but an accident doesn’t hold time, and therefore there is never a time when an accident can apply to an accident.

Evaluating the Two Arguments

I think the first argument is a more interesting argument. That is, they need to believe that there is no cause for anything except the first accident directly from God — that sounds more logical to me.

This argument that time is needed, I don’t quite understand, because I don’t really understand where time is needed, like, it’s a physical argument, like, how can God place an accident upon an accident if the accident already ceased to exist a moment ago? But why can’t He do it all at once? I don’t know, one needs to examine this, one needs to understand it.

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So up to here these two premises, I think that’s enough for today.