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What, according to Aristotle in the Posterior Analytics, is required for having knowledge “without qualification”? Explain his distinction between deduction and demonstration, and how he would respond to the claim: “You have knowledge only if you can demonstrate what you know.” How would the concepts of infinite regress and circularity figure in his response? What role does the notion of essence play in Aristotle’s account of knowledge, and what is the “Meno problem” for getting an account of something’s essence? With reference to the lunar eclipse example, explain how Aristotle would respond to this problem, and how he would avoid positing innate knowledge of essences.

Aristotle writes that most knowledge is not “pure” knowledge in that it is knowledge that comes from a secondary source. When we are taught things, we come to know them first because we did not know them previously, but also because someone else knew something we did not. It is knowledge we do not know innately, but something we know after the fact. Aristotle, however, seems to believe that there must be some kind of knowledge that exists intrinsically within human beings; that is knowledge without qualification

Aristotle’s first move is to go over what he calls “Demonstrative Knowledge” and what it is in contrast to deductive knowledge. Deductive knowledge is knowledge that comes from knowledge, in the basic. It involves two assumptions that are already known and/or accepted to be true, from which a third conclusion is derived. This is, according to Aristotle, a very primary way of knowing. Demonstrative knowledge is a kind of knowledge that comes to be known through the same means. However, Aristotle writes that it sets itself apart in that, “demonstrative knowledge must also be derived from things that are true, primary, immediate, better known than, prior to and explanatory of the conclusion” (Posterior Analytics 1.2, 71b). It is only if these conditions are met that a deduction will produce true knowledge in Aristotle’s strict sense. Knowledge that is demonstrative must be true, and the premises used to arrive at it must be “primary and indemonstrable…explanatory, better known, and prior” (Posterior Analytics 1.2, 71b). Demonstrable knowledge comes from primary knowledge not acquired by learning. Aristotle explains that they must be explanatory because we know things when we know their explanation. They must be prior and better known because in order to have knowledge in the strict sense, we must already be well acquainted with the premises used to derive them. They must be known from a very basic level. Knowledge that is demonstrable is knowledge that is qualifiable, and knowledge that is demonstrated is knowledge one can be sure to have.

Aristotle takes the time to answer whether knowledge is possible. He does not believe that one can only have knowledge if it is demonstrable. In pursuing this, he responds to two schools of thought on the matter. The first believe that there is no knowledge. One of the first problems that arise when examining knowledge and how it comes about is where that knowledge comes from. Members of this camp find that knowledge derived from knowledge is problematic in that then there must always be prior knowledge to your knowledge, and then prior knowledge to that knowledge, and to that knowledge, and so on and so forth. It is an infinite regress. They thus hold that there can be no knowledge. Aristotle sums this all up nicely, saying that, “they assume that we cannot know posterior things because of prior things, if there are no primary things” (Posterior Analytics 1.3, 72b). Maintainers of this view would argue that even if there were no infinite regress and that “first” knowledge indeed exists, it would not be knowledge demonstrable, as it would be knowledge not derived, and so it would not be knowable.

Aristotle rejects the idea that there is no knowledge, and that there is an infinite regress in knowledge. He believes in the first place that not all knowledge is demonstrative and that there exists knowledge that is knowledge without the need to be demonstrated. If there were an infinite number of premises, then demonstration would be impossible. For Aristotle, there exists an origin of knowledge.

The second school of thought simply believes that all knowledge is demonstrable. Members of this camp simply are willing to allow circular demonstration to be possible, and so avoid both undemonstrable first knowledge and infinite regress.

Aristotle replies to this quite simply that all knowledge cannot be demonstrable. He puts forth his condition on demonstrable knowledge that its premises must be prior and better known than the conclusion. As a result, circular demonstration is not possible because, “the same things cannot be both prior and posterior to the same things at the same time” (Posterior Analytics 1.3, 72b). This raises all sorts of problems with knowledge in general. Aristotle goes on to say that furthermore, if circular demonstration were possible, it would devalue demonstrable knowledge as a qualification; that is to say, it would be “easy to prove anything” (Posterior Analytics 1.3, 72b).

Plato’s Meno Paradox comes to be a problem at first for Aristotle’s theory of knowledge. The paradox questions how one can learn anything at all. If one does not know something, how can he inquire about what he knows nothing about? Plato worked around this paradox with his realm of universals, arguing that we do not learn anything, but only ever recollect. Aristotle rejects this, and presents the idea that we can acquaint ourselves with principles without demonstration or qualification. He believes that it is possible to grasp at something without knowing what it is and through that, generating some kind of knowledge of some aspect of that thing. While he relents that, “we cannot come to know the essence of a thing without knowing that the thing is,” he believes we can “grasp” an aspect of a thing and at the very least know that it is (Posterior Analytics 2.8, 93a).

An important distinction must be made here, that Aristotle states several times: there is a difference between having “grasped” an aspect of a thing and coincidentally coming to experience a part of it. He believes the latter case to be unimportant to knowledge. In the former case, however, he seems to require that there be some kind of understanding of the thing experienced. It cannot merely be a coincidental encounter resulting in a thusly coincidental and, in the end, superficial inquiry. Aristotle writes directly that, “to investigate what a thing is when we have not grasped that the thing is is to investigate nothing” (Posterior Analytics 2.8 93a). It is not good know enough to know that a thing is, but by some active inquiry resulting in an understanding (“grasping”) of at least some aspect of the thing in question, we can come to know that the thing is “to the extent that we know that the thing is” (Posterior Analytics 2.8 93a).

Aristotle gives his eclipse example to illustrate knowing something by grasping an aspect of it. Aristotle believes that we can come to know that it is without really understanding what it is insofar as its essence. If an eclipse were to occur and one does not know what it is, he does know that it is an eclipse. However, he does understand that there is no longer light reaching the earth from the moon. He understands all that is happening except that it is an “eclipse” that is occurring. In this way, one can understand the mechanisms of such a phenomenon without knowing what it is. The man knows that there is a deprivation of light coming from the moon caused by a blocking of the earth, and so he knows that an eclipse is occurring. In this way, he comes to know what the eclipse is, even without having had demonstrable premises to come to this conclusion. It is by having experienced and by successfully grasping the entailed occurrences involved with the eclipse that he understands what it is for an eclipse to occur. This is not a coincidental coming to know, but is a valid epistemic connection between phenomenon and the thing they constitute. While the man observing the eclipse has not yet come to know what that eclipse is, he now has gained knowledge enough to begin deductions in order to come to know the essence of the eclipse – that is to say, to come to know that the series of phenomenon he experienced was an eclipse.

This is Aristotle’s response to the Platonic idea of lingering pre-natal memory. Meno’s problem, however, persists through Aristotle’s account for coming to know the essence of something without having prior knowledge of its prerequisite premises. Those more inclined to argue platonic view would argue that at least some sort of base knowledge exists innately. Aristotle immediately rejects this idea, believing it to be absurd that we could possess such things without knowing of them and of learning them from no prior knowledge before that.

Aristotle’s answer to the Platonic account is essentially an extension of his argument tied with the eclipse example. He believes that human beings (and all animals, in fact) possess a “potentiality” called perception. Perception, for Aristotle, is the ability to experience (in the loose sense of the word) things beyond the organism itself. Aristotle calls it a “discriminative potentiality”, implying that it is not merely the intake of sensory information the animal is bombarded with, but that it also involves a way to process and, in a basic sense, understand it all. Aristotle believes human beings have a superior capacity in their ability to bind this information to memory and thus have knowledge. This ability to capture perception (processed sensory information) and to capture it to memory is Aristotle’s answer to innate knowledge. If there are universals, then there are particulars of that universal. Aristotle argues that we can come to have knowledge of a universal if and only if we first come to be acquainted with particulars of it. As one gathers up perceptions (or experiences, in the loose sense), he becomes able to generalize more and more, or to assign those perceptions into experiences (in Aristotle’s strict sense). Experiences, in Aristotle’s strict sense, are formed with repeated contact with particulars enough to form up generalizations, which are acknowledgement of the universals attached to their various constituent particulars. As we continue to take in the world we live in, we gather up perceptions, or understandings of things. As we continue to gather those up, we, as intelligent beings, continue to further understand them not just individually, but as a whole. We can thus organize and categorize them. This very act of putting related things together and keeping unrelated things separately is what allows us, according to Aristotle, to come into contact with universals. Aristotle puts a premium on experiences (in the loose sense) and the intake of information. In this way, the Platonic account and Meno are both circumvented.