Empiricism and Objectivity

The foundations of Locke's Empiricism are the immediate objects of the five senses.  He then distinguishes in those objects Primary Qualities and Secondary Qualities, and Berkeley eliminates the former completely, as does Hume.  But, the resulting experiential data can no longer be characterized as 'sensory', since the sense organs are part of what has been eliminated.  Likewise eliminated are any grounds for a distinction between Subject and Object, e. g. Hume's Bundle of Perceptions constitutes any entity as much as the 'I'.  So, this tradition can no longer be classified as 'Empiricism', and it lacks any criterion of Objectivity.  In contrast, Bacon's Empiricism seeks objective Knowledge via impersonally repeatable operations on observed things and events.  In other words, by privatizing Empiricism, Locke et al. abstract it from its social relevance.

Unmoved Mover, Causality, Critique of Religion

Aristotle's Unmoved Mover 1. is self-moving; 2. is unmoved by anything else; 3. moves everything else.  Now, the Causality involved in #3 is Teleological, i. e. it is the obect of desire of everything else.  However, it is unclear if, or how, the Causality involved in #1 is Teleological, or is any of the other three, for that matter.  Regardless, there is no Causality involved in #2.  So, while this concept seems internally indeterminate, and perhaps incoherent, it is valuable in one respect.  It serves as a critique of any religion constituted by any Causality other than unilateral Teleological, e. g. by human prayer or ritual, on the one hand, and divine reward and punishment, on the other.  The critique thus applies not only to pagan religions, but also to those the Theology of which draw upon Aristotelianism.

Omniscience and Omnipotence

Because Aristotle's deity is perpetually active Mind, it might be better characterized as 'self-moving', rather than his "unmoved".  Regardless, its internal dynamic is distinct from the Causality by virtue of which it is the "mover" of everything else--the "desire" of the moved for it.  Now, such Teleological Causality is clearer in the case of the entity whose enjoyments of mental activity are sporadic and finite than it is in the case of any entity with no obvious mental experience, e. g. an orbiting celestial body.  Instead, that the equivalence of Knowledge and Power is entailed, as has been previously discussed, in Aristotle's concept of Active Mind, suggests a different concept of Deity.  For, it follows that Omniscience and Omnipotence are also equivalent, so, the Deity that possesses them can create an object merely by thinking it--capacity that is surely desired by the lesser entities who must toil, with no guarantee of success, to actualize its objects.  Plus, that Deity is still the creator of any entity, e. g. a planet, that might lack such desire.  So it is debatable that his deity is supreme in the terms of his system.

Contemplation and Power

Probably the most misleading term in Aristotle's oeuvre is 'contemplation'.  For, while the word commonly connotes 'passive observation', in Metaphysics XII, 7, he characterizes the condition as "active", and, more notably, in On the Soul, III, 5, as "productive" and as "an art".  In other words, it is constituted by a possession of Power, from which it follows that Bacon's identity of Knowledge and Power is a recovery of, not a departure from, true Aristotelianism.  Similarly, his concept of the "desire to know", formulated at the outset of the Metaphysics, is equivalent to a Will to Power.

Productive Imagination, Schematism, Techne

Kant does not merely systematize the cognitive operations from the two main traditions of the previous era, he discovers one that is hitherto unknown--Productive Imagination.  In contrast with Reproductive Imagination, which copies Sense-Experience, Productive Imagination is the source of Schematism, which, in accordance with Concepts, delineates objects in advance of actual experience, a process that he characterizes variously as a "method", a "procedure", and an "art".  Now, in the relevant passages, his concern is the contribution of Schematism to Cognition.  But, it is, thus, analogously ingredient in Action, i. e. in which what it delineates in advance is motions in accordance with Concepts.  Thus, it is an essential factor in mundane operations such as following a set of instructions, as well as, more generally, in Techne.  On the other hand, it seems to be not a factor at all in Contemplation, which Aristotle conceives as immediate and intuitive.  Thus, Techne cannot be derived from Contemplation, which leaves Aristotle's judgment that it is inferior to the latter problematic, i. e. he therefore cannot argue that Techne is an degenerated mode of Contemplation.

Techne and Contemplation

According to Aristotle, Techne and Contemplation is each a Knowledge of Universals, but that the products of Techne are variable constitutes its inferiority to the latter.  Thus, it is unclear if it is insofar as it is productive, or insofar as its products are variable, that it is inferior.  Now, the Metaphysics does not quite clarify his judgment.  For, his definition of Contemplation as Knowledge of "first causes" is that of what the First Cause is--the Unmoved Mover.  But that Knowledge is distinct from Knowledge of Causality itself, a Knowledge that seems difficult to conceive without entailing Productivity.  So, the superiority of Contemplation might consist instead in the non-variability of the products of the First Cause, or, in other words, that the object of Contemplation, unlike that of Techne, is Necessary Causality.  But, then, he is arguing that the thought of the Causality of some other entity is superior to first-hand acquaintace with his own.  So, to accommodate that strong objection, Aristotle would seem to need to shift focus to an example of first-hand Knowledge of Necessary productivity, which, in his system can be only Syllogistic reasonong, i. e. the production of Consequences from Premises, which he discusses in On the Soul. But, how that process, i. e. Logic, is not Techne, i. e. a Knowledge of how to generate one proposition from another, remains unclear.

Techne and Political Philosophy

According to Plato, what qualifies the Philosopher to rule is Knowledge of the Idea of the Good.  Now, such Knowledge is Contemplation, but though he suggests that via the influence of that Idea, a ruler can harmonize the Polis, he does not explain how they can accomplish that.  In other words, Plato does not examine the Techne of ruling, and nor does Aristotle.  And nor does Bacon, even as he elevates Techne over Contemplate.  Rather, perhaps the only major work of Political Philosophy in which ruling is treated as a skill is The Prince.  So, while the break of the latter from Ancient Political Philosophy is generally considered to be its promotion of less than noble conduct in a ruler, the more fundamental innovation may be, a century before Bacon, the implicit elevation of Techne over Contemplation as the Knowledge that is essential to successful ruling.