Since materialists had to believe that human intelligence resulted from the operation of mechanical systems located in the human body . . .
What little I know about ancient Greek thought makes me doubt that they would have been equipped to follow up on the full implications of “materialism” in the modern sense. Following Newton, we’re now all completely accustomed to the idea that everything on Earth is governed by the same basic principles as everything else in the universe. We’re used to the idea of matter and energy and forces being quantified into precise algebraic formulas, and even random events can be described with some precision. But the Greeks, for all their knowledge of geometry, did not know algebra or probability.
As I understand it, the prevailing view in those days was that the things above the moon—the stars and planets—followed mathematical patterns (moving in circles, of course, because circles are so obviously terrific). However, on Earth, in our imperfect sublunary sphere, things had tendencies and impulses. Fire more or less wanted to go up, and water down, more or less in the same way that a squirrel wants to run away from a dog.
Aristotle also argues that the mind (only the agent intellect) is immaterial, able to exist without the body, and immortal. …One argument for its immaterial existence runs like this: if the mind were material, then it would have to possess a corresponding thinking-organ. And since all the senses have their corresponding sense-organs, thinking would then be like sensing. But sensing can never be false, and therefore thinking could never be false. And this is of course untrue. Therefore, Aristotle concludes, the mind is immaterial.
I would have thought so too, and maybe he had a deeper meaning lost in translation, but for a brilliant thinker, Aristotle could occasionally espouse some ideas that seem just plain stupid, at least to an ordinary modern person. I’m an ordinary modern person myself, so I’m not going to claim Aristotle was correct about this or that. I only meant to say, I don’t think we can assume that even the most sophisticated* Greeks were “materialists” at all in the modern sense. With regard to intelligence in particular, I don’t see that they “had to believe that human intelligence resulted from the operation of mechanical systems located in the human body.”
*using that term loosely, not to imply the formal school of Sophists.
What little I know about ancient Greek thought makes me doubt that they would have been equipped to follow up on the full implications of “materialism” in the modern sense. Following Newton, we’re now all completely accustomed to the idea that everything on Earth is governed by the same basic principles as everything else in the universe. We’re used to the idea of matter and energy and forces being quantified into precise algebraic formulas, and even random events can be described with some precision. But the Greeks, for all their knowledge of geometry, did not know algebra or probability.
As I understand it, the prevailing view in those days was that the things above the moon—the stars and planets—followed mathematical patterns (moving in circles, of course, because circles are so obviously terrific). However, on Earth, in our imperfect sublunary sphere, things had tendencies and impulses. Fire more or less wanted to go up, and water down, more or less in the same way that a squirrel wants to run away from a dog.
According to Wikipedia :
Why did he believe sensing could never be false? Surely he must have known about say mirages or camouflage.
I would have thought so too, and maybe he had a deeper meaning lost in translation, but for a brilliant thinker, Aristotle could occasionally espouse some ideas that seem just plain stupid, at least to an ordinary modern person. I’m an ordinary modern person myself, so I’m not going to claim Aristotle was correct about this or that. I only meant to say, I don’t think we can assume that even the most sophisticated* Greeks were “materialists” at all in the modern sense. With regard to intelligence in particular, I don’t see that they “had to believe that human intelligence resulted from the operation of mechanical systems located in the human body.”
*using that term loosely, not to imply the formal school of Sophists.