I've learned that there's been a minor revival of interest in Aristotle's biology, due to the inescapable teleological features of, well, all living things. — Wayfarer

This is very true, and I believe it's a key point toward understanding Aristotle's metaphysics. The teleological aspect of biology necessitates that there is a sort of "form" which is temporally prior to the material existence of a living body, as the cause of its being an organized body. This implies an immaterial form which the Greeks knew as the soul.

The second point, I believe is to understand the distinction between the immaterial "form" which is prior in existence to a material body, as cause of that body being the unique body which it is, and the "form" as we know it, in the sense of the formula of our understanding. This produces a duality of "form" in Aristotle, as one sense is proper to final cause, and the other is proper to formal cause. The revival of Aristotelian principles which you refer to, as displayed in this forum by participants like @Dfpolis and @apokrisis, commonly does not reflect this distinction, and it is common to find a conflation of these two distinct senses of "form".

We have disagreed over Gerson in the past. As a devoted student of Plotinus, I cannot fault his view of Plato since Gerson follows Plotinus' reading.

But I object to Gerson's picture of Aristotle as an anti-naturalist. It elides Plotinus' criticism of Aristotle.

Gerson's version of materialism ignores the limits of the universal that Aristotle discusses in the Metaphysics, which my quote above is taken from. — Paine

The difference between Neo-Platonist interpretations of Plato, and Aristotelian interpretations of Plato, I have described to Wayfarer in the past. The problem with Pythagorean idealism which Plato exposed, is that the theory of participation, which is the theory that supports the reality of these separate Ideas, makes these Ideas passive, and does not allow that the independent Ideas are active in the real world. Today this is known as the problem of interaction. Plato introduced "the good", as a principle of action.

What Aristotle did was define "form" as the active aspect of reality, and then he showed the need for independent active "Forms" as causal in the sense of teleologically causal, final cause, to account for the reality of the role of "the good" in the world, demonstrated by the free will.

The Neo-Platonists, as demonstrated by Plotinus, did not follow this principle, and adhered more to Pythagorean participation, but turned participation around to be emanation. However, the first principle "the One" is pure potential, passive, and so this cannot account for the act, the cause of emanation. In this way the Neo-Platonist metaphysics hits a dead end, the first principle is purely potential, and not actual. That contradicts Aristotle's cosmological argument. Christian theologist like Augustine and Aquinas, turn to the active "Form" of Aristotle, to account for the reality of the free will, and of God in general, as the first cause.

I am responding to your comment in the Griffin thread in this one because it concerns the current discussion of how "matter" is to be understood in the works of Aristotle and Plotinus.

In the Gerson review of Johansen, Aristotle's treatment of the "receptacle of creation", introduced at Timaeus 49A, is said to be:

In the sixth chapter, Johansen turns to an analysis of the receptacle of creation, arguing that its function is to be understood in the light of Plato’s conception of what coming into being actually is. The receptacle constitutes space (or place) because Plato needs to postulate a condition for something’s coming into or going out of existence. These are construed as “a certain kind of movement in and out of space (122).” Consideration of such movement abstracts from the mathematical conceptualization of nature. Thus coming into existence and going out of existence are really cases of the locomotion of the solid triangles out of which bodies are constructed. This is in contrast to the pre- kosmos where the coming into and going out of existence of the phenomenal bodies does not involve the movement of triangles. Both in the pre- kosmos and in the kosmos itself, movement is intrinsic to the phenomenal bodies or elements and is only derivatively attributable to the receptacle. Johansen goes on to argue that, in addition to the receptacle’s representing space or place, Aristotle was basically correct to identify it with matter. So, “place and matter coincide in that both are to be understood as the product of abstracting the formal characteristics of a body (133).” Space or place becomes mere extension. The receptacle thus becomes the continuant in change, which in the context of Timaeus is essentially locomotion. By contrast, Aristotle wants to distinguish fundamentally locomotion from other types of change — especially generation and destruction — and so he makes a sharper distinction between space or place and matter than does Plato. — Gerson, review of Plato's Natural Philosophy

I don't know if this account corresponds to Johansen's text but it leaves out a critical context in the dialogue. The "receptacle" is introduced at the start of a new beginning:

Clearly we should now begin again, once we have called upon 48E the god, our saviour, at the very outset of our deliberations to see us safely out of an unusual and unaccustomed exposition, to the doctrine of things probable. In any case, our fresh start concerning the universe should be more elaborate than before, for we distinguished two entities then, but now we must present a third factor. Two were sufficient for our previous descriptions, one designated as a sort of a model discernible by Nous and ever the same, while the second was a copy of the model 49A involved in becoming and visible. We did not distinguish a third entity at the time as we thought it enough to have these two, but now the argument seems to compel us to try to manifest a difficult and obscure form in words. What should we understand its capacity and nature to be? This in particular: it is the receptacle of all coming into being, like its nurse. Now although the truth has been spoken, a clearer statement about it is still required but it is difficult to do so, particularly 49B because it is necessary for the sake of this to raise a preliminary problem about fire and its accompaniments. It is difficult in the case of each of these to state what sort should actually be called water rather than fire, and what sort should be referred to as anything in particular rather than as everything individually, in such a manner as to employ language which is trustworthy and certain. How then, may we speak about them in a likely manner and in what way, and what can we say about them when faced with this problem? — Plato, Timaeus, translated by Horan

I take Gerson's point that a "likely account" does not refer to its "probabilistic" sense. The difficulty described by Timaeus is that the language of correspondence does not serve us as readily as it did in the other two models. The other difficulty is that third entity is prior to the other entities as fundamental ground of natural being. The new beginning is in that sense a second sailing as taken in the Phaedo (to which Fooloso4 often refers to.

A scholar who takes that perspective seriously is John Sallis. He takes exception to how χώρα is referred to as "space" in the sense of extension in (as expressed in Gerson's review) and even greater exception to Aristotle equating χώρα with "place" (τόπος):

For, according to Aristotle, this is what Plato declared the receptacle to be: “a substratum [ύποκείμενον] prior to the so-called elements, just as gold is the substratum of works made of gold.” Though in this context Aristotle refers to one other image of the χώρα, that of nurse (τιθήνη), he forgoes drawing on the content of that image and, instead, moves immediately to identify the receptacle with “primary matter” (329a). Yet the passage that is, at once, both most decisive and most puzzling occurs in Book 4 of the Physics: “This is why Plato says in the Timaeus that matter and the χώρα are the same; for the receptive and the χώρα are one and the same. Although the manner in which he speaks about the receptive in the Timaeus differs from that in the so-called unwritten teachings, nevertheless he declares that place [τόπος] and the χώρα are the same” (209b).

One cannot but be struck by the lack of correspondence between this passage and the text of the Timaeus. The passage declares three identifications: that of the receptive (μεταληπτικόν) with the χώρα, that of matter (ύλη) with the χώρα, and that of place (τόπος) with the χώρα. Only the first of these identifications has any basis in the text of the Timaeus, and then only if one disregards any difference that might distinguish μεταληπτικόν from the Platonic words δεχόμενον and ύποδοχή.

For the identification of ύλη with the χώρα, there is no basis in the Timaeus. Plato never uses the word ύλη in Aristotle’s sense, a sense that, one suspects, comes to be constituted and delimited only in and through the work of Aristotle. When Plato does, on a few occasions, use the word, it has the common, everyday sense of building material such as wood, earth, or stone. Following Aristotle’s own strategy in On Generation and Corruption, one could refer to the image of the constantly remodeled gold as providing support for the identification. But reference to this image could be decisive only if one privileged it over most of the others, disregarding, for instance, the image of the nurse, which represents the relation between the χώρα and the sensible in a way quite irreducible to that between matter and the things formed from it. What is perhaps even more decisive is that all these are images of the χώρα, images declared in an είκώς λόγος (likely account}, which is to be distinguished from the bastardly discourse in which one would venture to say the χώρα. — John Sallis, Chorology: On Beginning in Plato's Timaeus

A note on Plato's and Aristotle's idea of 'intelligibility':

"in thinking, the intelligible object or form is present in the intellect, and thinking itself is the identification of the intellect with this intelligible. Among other things, this means that you could not think if materialism is true… . Thinking is not something that is, in principle, like sensing or perceiving; this is because thinking is a universalising activity. This is what this means: when you think, you see - mentally see - a form which could not, in principle, be identical with a particular - including a particular neurological element, a circuit, or a state of a circuit, or a synapse, and so on. This is so because the object of thinking is universal, or the mind is operating universally.

….the fact that in thinking, your mind is identical with the form that it thinks, means (for Aristotle and for all Platonists) that since the form 'thought' is detached from matter, 'mind' is immaterial too."

Lloyd Gerson, Platonism vs Naturalism

that point about the distinction between 'the idea', and 'a synaptic state' is related to the point about the distinction between the physical representation and the meaning. — Wayfarer

Yes, as Gerson says, an idea is not identical with particulars (such as synaptic states), it is instead a formal abstraction of particulars, just as the number five is a formal abstraction of these asterixes (*****).

But this is the crucial point - there is no representation occurring here at all. That is what distinguishes Aristotle's view from Plato's. The asterixes don't represent or refer to the number five (as if the number five were something in addition to or independent of the asterixes). Instead, we just see that there are five asterixes. Or, on Gerson's usage, we mentally see the number five that is present in the asterixes.

Where classical metaphysics has helped me, is in understanding that ideas - not all ideas, of course, many ideas are just thought-bubbles - but at least some ideas are real - not because they're the property of individual minds, but are real in their own right. Most think nowadays that only matter~energy is real in its own right, everything is composed of that or comes from that, including thought. But if ideas are real, then that has considerable consequences. That's what's important about metaphysics in my view, and once you begin to understand it, things fall into place, although caution is required so as not to give way to fantasy or empty speculation. But if you read it with reference to the classical authors in the tradition, it helps to ground it. That's why I mentioned Aristotle - not that everything should refer to Aristotle, and not that Aristotelianism wasn't at some points in history a suffocating dogma.

(Actually I remember well my very first lecture in philosophy of science. The lecturer mentioned an anecdote concerning a group of scholastic monastics arguing about how many teeth horses have. They all scuttled off to check Aristotle in the library, but found this item wasn't there. So they declared it was something that couldn't be known, and utterly bollocksed one of their number who suggested that they go look at an actual horse.)

Another good lecture on all of this is Lloyd Gerson, Platonism vs Naturalism. You can find the pdf here and even a Youtube video of him delivering it as a lecture here. Gerson is regarded as one of the pre-eminent authorities on Plato and Aristotle.

Unfortunately the single-minded focus on speculative theories about Platonism, regarded as unquestionable established facts, has resulted in the dialogue itself being ignored.

I agree with Gerson when he says about:

over-critical reading of individual dialogues independently of other dialogues — Apollodorus

The dialogues form larger wholes. Two or more dialogues are tied together in various ways, by the chronology of events, such as Euthyphro and Apology or extended to include Crito and Phaedo, or by a central question such as with the trilogy Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman, or Phaedrus and Symposium on eros. That the dialogues are not independent, however, does not mean that they are not each wholes in themselves. They can be seen in this regard as a version of the problem of the one and the many, with each being one, and together being both many and a whole or one. The Forms themselves represent the same problem.

.. among a few scholars... — Apollodorus

I don't know if Gerson identifies these scholars, but we should not mistake a few scholars for all scholars whose reading of the dialogues does not agree with his or your own.

It was primarily a way of life. — Apollodorus

I agree with him on this as well. Socrates' concern with the human things is a concern for a way of life - the examined life.

This leads back to the question of what guides that way of life. Euthyphro thinks it is some notion of piety, but he is unable to say what that is. To say that it is what the gods love does not tell us what it is that the gods love or how we are to determine what the gods love.

The Socratic way is the way of inquiry, engendered by the desire to become wise. It is to lead an examined life. Rather than assume, like Euthyphro, that you know what you do not know, knowing that you do not know you continue to inquire, to examine, to question.

Gerson may be right about Platonism being about building a theoretical construct out of "Ur-Platonism", but if he is, this shows how far the Socratic way of life is from Platonism. I agree with those scholars who think that Plato and Aristotle are Socratic. But Plato and Aristotle know that the Socratic way of life is only for the few. The many need answers, and so, they give them salutary answers that will guide them.

It comes down to whether we put our faith and trust in and hold fast to these answers or if we do not rest content with what we are told and continue to inquire and examine and evaluate.

Something is missing there, — Apollodorus

There is nothing missing. It is not a syllogism.

And you are not paying attention. What Gerson is saying ... — Apollodorus

What I am saying is that you pay far too much attention to Gerson. Unless a scholar from the 19th century can shed light on the dialogues, such things are of no concern to me.

Gerson doesn’t need to name those scholars ( — Apollodorus

No, he doesn't. You, on the other hand, use his criticism of those scholars to dismiss other sholars.

because we know exactly who they are. — Apollodorus

And exactly who they are are not the scholars I make use of. Simple strawman.

I think it's part of the much broader 'culture war' between scientific secularism and religious belief, — Wayfarer

Or between change or "progress" and existing culture.

Gerson says:

We see the history of philosophy as the development of Platonism (with a few interesting outliers), followed in the seventeenth century by the beginning of efforts to find some common ground between Platonism and Naturalism, followed in the eighteenth century and then ever after, by the growing dominance of Naturalism ....

- Platonism and Naturalism, p. 265

Elsewhere he says:

I have argued in this book that Proclus's praise of Plotinus as leading the way in the exegesis of the Platonic revelation is essentially correct. Although this is a view shared by scholars of Platonism and by Platonists, too, well into the nineteenth century, it is a view that is today, especially in the English-speaking world, mostly either ridiculed or ignored .... some few scholars have inferred from this fact that the dialogues must therefore not be philosophical writings at all

- From Plato to Platonism, p. 308

Indeed, we find Strauss making the following statement:

In what I said there is an implication which I would like to make explicit: Plato never wrote a system of philosophy

- L. Strauss, On Plato's Symposium, p. 5

Either there is a movement called "anti-Platonism" as Gerson and others assert, or there isn't.

If, as Gerson says, "Platonism is philosophy and anti-Platonism is antiphilosophy" (Platonism and Naturalism, p. 8), then anti-Platonism must have certain nuclei of dispersion some of which are more influential than others. Straussianism does have considerable influence in the anti-Platonist movement and I think it is instructive to see how it acquired this influence.

I don't think Platonists can afford to be mere passive observers. They need to understand the situation, its causes, and its remedies, and take appropriate action.

Gerson also insisted that Plato was an Aristotelian ! — magritte

Well, he also says that Aristotle was a Platonist.

However, this needs to be understood in the right context. What Gerson is talking about is what he calls "Ur-Platonism".

He argues against some scholars' opinion that there is no philosophical position in the dialogues, and proposes that Plato does have a philosophy, that the dialogues are the best evidence of this, and that Plato's philosophy is part of broader philosophical developments that were already underway before Plato. Hence "Ur-Platonism".

He describes the elements of Ur-Platonism as "antimaterialism, antimechanism, antinominalism, antirelativism, and antiskepticism", i.e. tendencies that coalesce to form the basis of Plato's own philosophy.

After all, Plato did incorporate and synthesized much of the philosophy available at the time, but he did not do so uncritically or indiscriminately. On the contrary, Plato was widely recognized as a philosopher precisely because he offered a reasoned rejection of some philosophical positions and modified others in a way that made sense to his audience.

Let's not forget that Aristotle himself was a member of the Academy and developed his own ideas of "Unmoved Mover", "soul", etc., that do show Platonic influence despite differences.

In any case, Gerson expressly says that his proposal is a "theoretical framework for analysis" not a history of philosophy.

"A thing is identical with itself."—There is no finer example of a useless proposition, which yet is connected with a certain play of the imagination. — Joshs

Wittgenstein didn't understand the point. He boasted he'd never read Aristotle. But I've never read Wittgenstein, so I'd better shut up.

We see particulars ( objective aspect) under accounts (formal aspect) , but are not these accounts subjective rather than objective? — Joshs

There's a good discussion of universals in Russell, 'World of Universals'. The salient point:

It is largely the very peculiar kind of being that belongs to universals which has led many people to suppose that they are really mental. We can think of a universal, and our thinking then exists in a perfectly ordinary sense, like any other mental act. Suppose, for example, that we are thinking of 'whiteness'. Then in one sense it may be said that whiteness is 'in our mind'. ... In the strict sense, it is not whiteness that is in our mind, but the act of thinking of whiteness. The connected ambiguity in the word 'idea'...also causes confusion here. In one sense of this word, namely the sense in which it denotes the object of an act of thought, whiteness is an 'idea'. Hence, if the ambiguity is not guarded against, we may come to think that whiteness is an 'idea' in the other sense, i.e. an act of thought; and thus we come to think that whiteness is mental. But in so thinking, we rob it of its essential quality of universality. One man's act of thought is necessarily a different thing from another man's; one man's act of thought at one time is necessarily a different thing from the same man's act of thought at another time. Hence, if whiteness were the thought as opposed to its object, no two different men could think of it, and no one man could think of it twice. That which many different thoughts of whiteness have in common is their object, and this object is different from all of them. Thus universals are not thoughts, though when known they are the objects of thoughts.

which is precisely the sense in which I understand it.

I think Gerson misses an important circumstance that Aristotle observes in De Anima. — Paine

In fairness, mine was a paragraph quoted from a long essay (which you can find here or even watch Gerson deliver it as a lecture here, bookmarked to the relevant section.)

The broader point is that whilst Aristotle departed from Plato's depiction of the existence of universals, they are still present in his philosophy as the intelligible forms of things, which becomes the basis of matter-form dualism (hylomorphism). This holds that the idea of the thing is grasped by the intellect, while its material form is the object of the senses.

Probably logging out for Christmas, so Happy Christmas to all.

I have listened to the Gerson lecture a couple of times. Do you know of a link to a printed copy? Each of his statements are proposals to discuss very specific topics.

I agree with Gerson's argument that Aristotle is not stepping outside of what 'urPlatonism' militates against. On the other hand, it seems that Aristotle worked hard to have the empirical inquiry of the natural world be worthy and capable of going forward, even if upon a problematical basis.

Is that a compromise, as Gerson would describe it? It seems to me that Aristotle's efforts to separate inquiries reflect an interest in avoiding putting matters in those terms of opposition.

The issue I raised is whether the active principle of the intellect is a person as one who experiences themselves as such after that principle is separated from the composition of a living individual. Plotinus' view of the soul differs sharply from Aristotle's regarding what elements are being discussed — Paine

Well, Plotinus is entitled to his own views like everyone else. Plato doesn’t say that his followers must follow him ad litteram. But the quote from Gerson is not about Plotinus. He very clearly says what he thinks are Plato and Aristotle’s views on the subject of the intellect’s “survival” or “transcendence” after death:

The activity of intellect in both Plato and Aristotle is impersonal only in the sense of being nonidiosyncratic. The contents of intellect’s thinking when it is thinking that which is intelligible is the same for everyone. If I am nothing but an intellect, then, ideally, I differ from you solo numero. Emotions, appetites, memories, and sensations are not just numerically distinct for different embodied persons, they are idiosyncratic as well, insofar as they depend on a unique body.

According to Gerson, for Aristotle the “surviving” or “transcending” part of man is a type of impersonal intelligence. Gerson’s interpretation sounds reasonable enough to me.

The impersonality of the nous following physical death is I think one of the reasons why Aristotle urges philosophers to self-identify with that higher element in man as opposed to lower elements belonging to the body-mind compound.

As pointed out in my previous posts, it wouldn’t make sense for a philosopher to identify with parts of him that not only are not his true self, but are perishable.

Obviously, if the nous is man’s true self, true knowledge and happiness are attained through identification with the nous and its contemplative activity, as Aristotle says.

But the point I was trying to make is that the way I see it, it is imperative to look at things from a synoptic perspective. And this necessitates not only an ability to see through the anti-Platonist propaganda and disinformation, but also taking into consideration Aristotle’s Platonic background.

As Plato says in the Republic, the Good is the source of all knowledge and of everything that is good, therefore, the Good is the “highest lesson” or the “highest thing to learn” (Rep. 505a).

Similarly, Aristotle begins his Nicomachean Ethics by stating that “the Good is that at which all things aim”:

If our activities have some end which we want for its own sake, and for the sake of which we want all the other ends, it is clear that this must be the good, that is, the supreme good. Does it not follow, then, that a knowledge of the good is of great importance to us for the conduct of our lives? (Nicomachean Ethics. 1094a15-25)

He then says:

What is the highest of all practical goods? Well, so far as the name goes, there is pretty general agreement. ‘It is happiness,’ say both ordinary and cultured people … But when it comes to saying in what happiness consists, opinions differ, and the account given by the generality of mankind is not at all like that of the wise … Some, however, have held the view that over and above these particular goods there is another which is Good in itself and the cause of whatever goodness there is in all these others (Nicomachean Ethics. 1095a15-30)

And he eventually comes to the conclusion that the highest happiness comes from the highest activity which is contemplation (theoria) of higher realities.

The activity of the Gods, which is supremely happy, must be a form of contemplation; and therefore among human activities that which is the most akin to the God’s will be the happiest (Nicomachean Ethics 1178b20).

Plato also says that the Good is the cause of everything good and that it makes the universe good like itself by imposing order on the universe.

Aristotle says pretty much the same thing:

An excessively large number cannot participate in order: to give it order would surely be a task for divine power, which holds even this universe together (Politics 1326a32-33)

The Universe is a system made up of heaven and earth and the elements which are contained in them. But the word is also used in another sense of the ordering and arrangement of all things, preserved by and through God (De Mundo 391b9-11)

There still remains for us to treat briefly, as we have discussed the other objects, of the cause which holds all things together … The old explanation which we have all inherited from our fathers, is that all things are from God and were framed for us by God, and that no created thing is of itself sufficient for itself, deprived of the permanence which it derives from him … It is therefore better, even as it is more seemly and befitting God, to suppose that the power which is stablished in the heavens is the cause of permanence even in those things which are furthest removed from it – in a word, in all things (De Mundo 397b9-398a5)

Thus a single harmony orders the composition of the whole – heaven and earth and the whole Universe – by the mingling of the most contrary principles … all the earth, the sea, the ether, the sun, the moon, and the whole heaven are ordered by a single power extending through all, which has created the whole universe out of separate and different elements, embracing them all on one spherical surface and forcing the most contrary natures to live in agreement with one another in the universe, and thus contriving the permanence of the whole (Politics 396b20-30)

Aristotle also says that the universe is created by an Intellect in conjunction with Nature:

Since there can be nothing incidental unless there is something primary for it to be incidental to, it follows that there can be no incidental causation except as incident to direct causation. Chance and fortune, therefore, imply the antecedent activity of Intellect (Nous) and Nature (Physis) as causes; so that, even if the cause of the heavens were ever so casual, yet Intellect and Nature must have been causes antecedently, not only of many other things we could mention, but of the universe itself (Physics 198a10-13)

If we take an unbiased look at the larger picture, I think a clear Platonic pattern begins to emerge:

1. Supreme principle of goodness.
2. Divine power that orders and holds together the universe.
3. Divine Intellect as cause of the universe.
4. Forms.
5. Immortality of individual intellect.
6. The best life is a life lived in harmony with intellect.
7. Contemplation of higher realities is the highest form of activity, etc.

We can see that, despite differences, Aristotle operates within paradigms that are largely Platonic. This is why IMO we need to bear this in mind in order to understand him correctly.

In any case, it is clear that the nous as an immaterial, eternal and unaffected intelligence plays as much a central role in Aristotle’s system as it does in Plato and Platonism.

Gerson is a scholar whose focus has long been on Plotinus and your description of 'Platonism' is very close to his view. Gerson used the expression "disembodied self." There is source for that expression in Plotinus. I am not aware of a source for that language about self in Plato. Perhaps Gerson throws some light upon that topic somewhere.

The purpose of my comparison between Plotinus and Aristotle was not to challenge an overarching theory of what the different authors might agree upon regarding eternity and immortality in general but to ask what Aristotle imagines the Nous continuing after death entails. There are plenty of notions where the immortality of the soul is not a repetition of a lived identity. None of your observations approach the question framed as such.

I think I understand Gerson's thesis and its relation to the development of the scientific method.

Since you spoke approvingly of phenomenology, I was asking where you thought it fit in Gerson's schema where 'Platonism' or 'Naturalism' are the only possible approaches and the attempts to find 'rapprochement' between the two are a fool's errand"

Phenomenology is not materialist nor mechanistic. It does look for a nature or environment where events happen. Does it require the possibility of "perfect cognition" that Gerson has on the Platonist checklist? And so on.

I've argued for several years that the mooted distinction between an internal and an external world is misguided. — Banno

And the reason I think it's fundamental is because it is the very condition of individual existence - even of the existence of the very simplest lifeforms. The very most basic thing that any life form has, is a sense of itself in the environment - the ability to avoid harm, seek nourishment, find conditions suitable for growth and so on. These capacities have been observed in even single-celled organisms. And in developmental psychology, one of the primary divisions that is formed in early infanthood is the ability to differentiate the self from the world, a sense which is almost entirely absent in newborns.

The net result of all of this is that the sense of self and other, mine and not mine, what is internal to me and what is in the world, is very deeply rooted in the psyche (or soul). It's a fundamental condition of existence. And my intuition is, that this is also fundamental to the Gordian knot that a transcendental philosophy has to untie. It's a deep and difficult topic and one rarely encountered in today's philosophy.

I don't think a conspiracy of anti-idealist sentiment will cut it. — Banno

It's not a conspiracy so much as a cultural artefact. I enrolled in formal philosophy, as you know, under David Stove and others - they told me philosophy, as it is now taught and understood, is not what interests me. Which is true! And that's because it's become an academic parlour game, a technical subject of specialists who talk mainly to themselves. I have no time for many of the 20th c analytical philosophers, if I thought that constituted philosophy I'd have no interest in the subject.

I'm with Pierre Hadot and Lloyd Gerson, and the others of that ilk, who say that modern analytic philosophy radically departs from the real concerns of philosophy. I'm gradually getting through Gerson's last, Platonism and Naturalism: The Possibility of Philosophy.'Gerson contends that Platonism identifies philosophy with a distinct subject matter, namely, the intelligible world, and seeks to show that the Naturalist rejection of Platonism entails the elimination of a distinct subject matter for philosophy. Thus, the possibility of philosophy depends on the truth of Platonism.' And the reason for all this is that philosophy has a spiritual facet - it's not the same as religion, but shares a common border, if you like. And because of secular culture's fear of religion, it can't be tolerated.

I'm struggling to do the reading. Gerson's books are about 90% addressed to other academics in defense of his interpretations, and the whole field of scholarship is so dense that it's almost impossible for the casual reader to absorb. All I've noticed is from the Gerson lectures I've listened to and read, is that Gerson seems to defend a general interpretation which I'm drawn to - anti-reductionist, anti-nominalist, and so on. Probably better not to go down that road in this thread.

The 'subject of experience' is the being to whom experiences occur. The 'problems of philosophy' are (for example) the kinds of problems about the nature of mind, nature of universals, number, ontology, metaphysics and so on. The problem of reductionism arises in the attempt to apply the quantitative approach of the sciences to the qualitative problems of philosophy.

I tried making the point earlier in this thread that the 'idea of the One' in Greek philosophy is not something that is amenable to discursive analysis. The philosophical aspirant who wishes to understand the idea of the One has to engage in the deep process of catharsis or purification in order to clear the inner obstacles to understanding. As Pierre Hadot remarks in his Philosophy as a Way of Life, this involves spiritual exercises which (for many) are uncomfortably close to religion.

Here's worthwhile video called The Coherence of Platonism by Irish youtuber Keith Woods. It's a talk on Lloyd Gerson's book, Platonism and Naturalism. The jacket copy:

In this broad and sweeping argument, Gerson contends that Platonism identifies philosophy with a distinct subject matter, namely, the intelligible world, and seeks to show that the Naturalist rejection of Platonism entails the elimination of a distinct subject matter for philosophy. Thus, the possibility of philosophy depends on the truth of Platonism. From Aristotle to Plotinus to Proclus, Gerson clearly links the construction of the Platonic system well beyond simply Plato's dialogues, providing strong evidence of the vast impact of Platonism on philosophy throughout history. Platonism and Naturalism concludes that attempts to seek rapprochement between Platonism and Naturalism are unstable and likely indefensible.

Gerson is a devoted student of Plotinus. Plotinus had his own view of the limits of Aristotle in relation to what he thought Plato was saying. To some extent, I think Gerson is reverse engineering what Plotinus assumed to be the case.

I don't charge Gerson with some nefarious purpose. Some of his commentaries on Aristotle are very interesting. But I am not on board with the Ur Platonism argument.

In a well-known argument Gerson claims that the immateriality of the intellect disproves materialism. — Leontiskos

Just noticed your post now.

I have read some of Lloyd Gerson's work, but I find his corpus pretty unapproachable, as it is directed almost solely at his academic peer group, or so it seems to me. He's written a series of books, including one contentiously called Aristotle and Other Platonists, but they're dense with footnotes and polemical skirmishes with competing interpretations. It's a shame his work is not more approachable, because I think his central thesis - that Platonism basically articulates the central concerns of philosophy proper, and that it can't be reconciled with today's naturalism - is both important and neglected. It would be great if there could be a compendium of his writing edited for a more general audience, although I suppose it would still be only a small general audience. (Rather a good lecture on his Possibility of Philosophy here.)

I've long been interested in various aspects of scholastic and platonic realism, i.e. the view that universals and abstract objects are real. There's precious little interest in and support for such ideas here, or anywhere, really. But I'm of the view that it was the decline of scholastic realism and the ascendancy of nominalism which were key factors in the rise of philosophical and scientific materialism and the much-touted 'decline of the West'. But it's a hard thesis to support, and besides, as I say, has very little interest, it's diametrically at odds with the mainstream approach to philosophy.

Some of the sources I frequently cite in support include Bertrand Russell's chapter on The World of Universals, the transcript of a lecture by Jacques Maritain The Cultural Impact of Empiricism, a book section about Augustine on Intelligible Objects, a book called The Theological Origins of Modernity by Michael Allen Gillespie. And this excerpt from a book on Thomistic philosophy which re-states, I think, the same argument Gerson refers to in respect of the immateriality of nous.

When one goes to the first page of the search for Gerson, the comments I made there are some arguments against his view. Further in the past, I expressed differences with Gerson's interpretation of De Anima unrelated to this thesis.

As time has passed, I have been thinking about his thesis as a "philosophy of history" that searches text to find the steps he is looking for. Up to now, I was mostly approaching it as a competing interpretation of the text.

I will think about how to expand upon the historicist angle.

- Okay, well I would be interested in the expansion. I think Aristotle had often been read against Plato, and I think Gerson is in part trying to correct this. It seems that although Aristotle does disagree with Plato at various points, they really do both form a single school vis-a-vis Gerson's "Ur-Platonism." Plato's enemies are always also Aristotle's enemies. There is an interesting two-minute clip from Myles Burnyeat where he touches on this question of anti-materialism, and the way that Plato and Aristotle differ in this matter while being in the same general camp (link).

Perhaps for Gerson it came down to the question of either including or excluding Aristotle from Ur-Platonism, and the rest follows from being unable to exclude him.

Leaving aside my (or other people's) objections to Gerson's idea of Ur-Platonism, Gerson certainly seems to group the 'naturalists' as unified in their opposition to what he supports:

[...]

But I take your point that a collection of five "anti's" has problems asserting a clear thesis. That highlights a difference with other critiques of the modern era. — Paine

Yes, that's a fair point. The five points converge on anti-naturalism.

Responding to your added text, the idea of transjective constituents would count as antithetical to what Gerson required. — Paine

I don't know too much about Vervaeke, but I don't think he would see it this way. There is an interesting question about whether the overcoming of the subjective/objective division existed before modernity. I am currently reading John Deely's book on Heidegger and he would say that it did exist, albeit in a qualified and seminal way.

Werner's observation is interesting.

I directed my comment more at the objections I have made over the years addressing Gerson's argument about "naturalism" as an antipode to the eidetic.

You have made much of the difference between ancient and modern ideas of the physical. How comparisons of that sort are made rely heavily upon what is understood by specific text that talks about that sort of thing.

Challenging Gerson's reading of the text is not equivalent to challenging what Gerson makes of it. Without that distinction, we could all be talking about anything we like.

I am curious if you meant to link to Gerson's article rather than Wang's with the same title. If so, there is a comment I would like to make about past conversations between us on the topic.

I do not want to mount up for a new Anabasis against Gerson. But I will read Rödl to see how his view of Aristotle matches up with Gerson's concept of self-reflexivity and his Plotinus point of view of Aristotle that I have highlighted in the past.

I stil maintain that an effective (if not 'slam dunk') argument against physicalism is from classical philosophy: that linguistic communication would be impossible if materialism were true. Or, as Lloyd Gerson put it, you could not think if materialism were true.

Aristotle, in De Anima, argued that thinking in general (which includes knowledge as one kind of thinking) cannot be a property of a body; it cannot, as he put it, 'be blended with a body'. This is because in thinking, the intelligible object or form is present in the intellect, and thinking itself is the identification of the intellect with this intelligible. Among other things, this means that you could not think if materialism is true… . Thinking is not something that is, in principle, like sensing or perceiving; this is because thinking is a universalising activity. This is what this means: when you think, you see - mentally see - a form which could not, in principle, be identical with a particular - including a particular neurological element, a circuit, or a state of a circuit, or a synapse, and so on. This is so because the object of thinking is universal, or the mind is operating universally.

….the fact that in thinking, your mind is identical with the form that it thinks, means (for Aristotle and for all Platonists) that since the form 'thought' is detached from matter, 'mind' is immaterial too. — Lloyd Gerson, Platonism v Naturalism

Interpretation - De Anima III.4–5. Here, Aristotle argues that thinking cannot be the act of a bodily organ because the intellect receives forms “without matter,” i.e., as universals; it grasps the idea of the object, which is an intellectual, not a sensory, act. Whereas a bodily organ always perceives specific material thing. But the intellect must be capable of receiving any form whatever, which requires that it be “unmixed” with the body (429a15–b22).

In the act of thinking, the intellect is identified with the form it thinks. Since the form considered as intelligible is not a particular, and no brain-state can be anything other than a particular, the thinking intellect cannot be identical with any material structure. This is why Aristotle says that intellect is “separate,” “impassive,” and “unmixed.”

Gerson is simply stating this classical Aristotelian point: if materialism is true—that all mental acts are particular physical states—then universal thought would be impossible, and without it, you could not think. But universal thought occurs. Therefore materialism cannot give an adequate account of thought.

Edward Feser amplifies the point:

Consider that when you think about triangularity, as you might when proving a geometrical theorem, it is necessarily perfect triangularity that you are contemplating, not some mere approximation of it. Triangularity as your intellect grasps it is entirely determinate or exact; for example, what you grasp is the notion of a closed plane figure with three perfectly straight sides, rather than that of something which may or may not have straight sides or which may or may not be closed. Of course, your mental image of a triangle might not be exact, but rather indeterminate and fuzzy. But to grasp something with the intellect is not the same as to form a mental image of it. For any mental image of a triangle is necessarily going to be of an isosceles triangle specifically, or of a scalene one, or an equilateral one; but the concept of triangularity that your intellect grasps applies to all triangles alike. Any mental image of a triangle is going to have certain features, such as a particular color, that are no part of the concept of triangularity in general. A mental image is something private and subjective, while the concept of triangularity is objective and grasped by many minds at once. — Edward Feser

Feser makes the same point in contemporary terms: a mental image of a triangle will always be of one specific triangle (isosceles, oriented, coloured, etc.), whereas the concept of triangularity is perfectly determinate, universal, and shareable among many minds. Because the object of intellection is universal, and because thought consists in the mind’s identity with that universal form, no physical state—necessarily a particular—can be identical to an act of understanding.

And from Bertrand Russell:

It is largely the very peculiar kind of being that belongs to universals which has led many people to suppose that they are really mental. We can think of a universal, and our thinking then exists in a perfectly ordinary sense, like any other mental act. Suppose, for example, that we are thinking of whiteness. Then in one sense it may be said that whiteness is 'in our mind'. ... In the strict sense, it is not whiteness that is in our mind, but the act of thinking of whiteness. The connected ambiguity in the word 'idea', which we noted at the same time, also causes confusion here. In one sense of this word, namely the sense in which it denotes the object of an act of thought, whiteness is an 'idea'. Hence, if the ambiguity is not guarded against, we may come to think that whiteness is an 'idea' in the other sense, i.e. an act of thought; and thus we come to think that whiteness is mental. But in so thinking, we rob it of its essential quality of universality. One man's act of thought is necessarily a different thing from another man's; one man's act of thought at one time is necessarily a different thing from the same man's act of thought at another time. Hence, if whiteness were the thought as opposed to its object, no two different men could think of it, and no one man could think of it twice. That which many different thoughts of whiteness have in common is their object, and this object is different from all of them. Thus universals are not thoughts, though when known they are the objects of thoughts. — Betrand Russell, The World of Universals

Of course, the nominalist objection will be that there is no universal 'triangle', only particular triangles, which we can see resemble each other. But that objection fails because it can't explain what it appeals to. A mental image or sensory perception is always specific: coloured, sized, oriented, isosceles or scalene, etc. But the concept of triangularity is exact, universal, and common to all minds. No image captures this, and no neural configuration can be identical with something that applies to indefinitely many images. Moreover, nominalism presupposes the very universals it denies: similarity, classification, identity of meaning, and the laws of logic are themselves universals. Without universals, no two thinkers could ever mean the same thing, no inference could be valid beyond the moment, and mathematics would be impossible. This is why the Aristotelian argument stands: the universal content of thought cannot be reduced to any particular material state, and a materialist–nominalist account cannot explain the phenomenon it tries to deny, as any explanation will implicitly rely on the very universal categories of thought which nominalism insists are unreal.

I have to disagree on Plotinus. He's easily one of the most underrated philosophers around, not one of the most overrated.

The problem with Plotinus is that modern scholarship on Plotinus is terrible, for a number of reasons.

1. Most Plotinus scholars are continentals and analytics...neither of whom have any business doing the history of classical or medieval philosophy. Or, more often than not, philosophy at all. But I digress.

Case in point: Anyone here familiar with Lloyd P. Gerson? In his book "Plotinus: Arguments of the Philosophers," he actually makes the claim that there is an argument for hypostatic Intellect from the existence of eternal truth.

I am almost certain that he pulled this out of thin air.

An analytic historian of philosophy is someone who thinks that if he plays linguistic and logic games with a text, and failing that, tries to "reduce it" to common sense and common language, he'll end up with a correct or plausible reading.

Anyone familiar with Peter Geach? Analytical philosopher who wrote books on Aquinas? No? Good. Don't bother. Not worth it.

Fact is, if you're not someone who's knee deep in the Aristotelian and Platonic traditions, you're just not going to understand Plotinus. If you don't have, not only a good knowledge of the Posterior Analytics, the Metaphysics and at least some of the Physics...well...let's just say that's the bare minimum, and if that's all that you're bringing to the table, you still won't understand him.

Lloyd P. Gerson is famous for his exposition of the "two acts" theory in Plotinus' thought.

He's famous for that. That's a "big discovery" in modern scholarship.

Oy vae.

2. We only have access to fragments of Plotinus' recent predecessors among the middle Platonists, and we have absolutely no writings from his teacher, Ammonias Saccas.

3. The commentary that Proclus, a later Neoplatonist, wrote on the Enneads has since been lost. And as far as I'm aware, we don't have any other ancient commentaries on the Enneads.

From 2 and 3, note carefully: Just because we are alive at a later date doesn't mean that our understanding of an historical period, of an historical figure, of a philosophy, etc. is somehow better than those people of an age gone by. Texts get lost. Ideas fall out of the contemporary zeitgeist. Things get forgotten.

4.I think that Armstrong is just right on this point: the Enneads are an unsystematic presentation of a systematic philosophy. In addition to the problem of the difficulty and obscurity of Plotinus' thought, which is DEEPLY and COMPLEXLY scholastic, in addition to the fact that we have him, so to speak, "ripped out" of his historical context, that he appears in the midst of a veritable sea of forgotten and lost personalities...

...in addition to all of that, he's just downright obscure, and more on some occassions than on others. To quote Kevin Corrigan: "Plotinus never says the same thing twice." He's not like other thinkers where he will copy/paste and expand basically the exact same thing in different contexts when he's talking about the same thing. He's not like Kant where he will basically repeat himself ad nauseam so that you basically know exactly what he's going to say next.

The dude's writing is both dialectical and obscure. He'll entertain 12 different positions at once (a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much), argue through them all, and you'll be left scratching your head wondering what he actually thinks. And then just wait until he takes up the same topic a few treatises down the line!

He simply lacks the expositional clarity of a figure like Proclus.

But...

...

All in all, he's definitely a Platonist, and one of the most important ones. Proclus and Plotinus are probably two of the most influential Platonists in the middle ages and decidedly helped shape the course of Arabic and Western scholastic thought. Avicenna and Al-Farabi both knew a version of Plotinus and Proclus, albeit through arabic paraphrases, integrated them into their own systems, and passed that on to the Christian scholastic west.

If the mental representation changes, and the information does not, then how can the information be said to be mental? — Srap Tasmaner

Excellent question! I think the answer has to do with the fact that mental representation has an attribute which physical forms do not, namely, plasticity. The mind is able to conjure, compare, shuffle, and re-arrange ideas effortlessly, in a way that is not feasible for physical forms. But in both cases - i.e. either mental or physical forms - the salient ability is the ability to infer or deduce meaning, to equate this symbol or form with that idea. It is the 'grasping of meaning' which is essential to the process - which is, as I said earlier, the precise import of the word 'intelligence'.

I soundly refuted that argument, perhaps you weren't paying attention. — Metaphysician Undercover

You didn't 'refute' it, you're obfuscating the meaning of 'the same'! As I said, endless obfuscation. No further comment.

Samuel LaCrampe is essentially making the same point as made by Loyd Gerson in the quotation from Aristotle's De Anima some pages back, which I repeat here for convenience:

in thinking, the intelligible object or form is present in the intellect, and thinking itself is the identification of the intellect with this intelligible. Among other things, this means that you could not think if materialism is true… . Thinking is not something that is, in principle, like sensing or perceiving; this is because thinking is a universalising activity. This is what this means: when you think, you see - mentally see - a form which could not, in principle, be identical with a particular - including a particular neurological element, a circuit, or a state of a circuit, or a synapse, and so on. This is so because the object of thinking is universal, or the mind is operating universally.

….the fact that in thinking, your mind is identical with the form that it thinks, means (for Aristotle and for all Platonists) that since the form 'thought' is detached from matter, 'mind' is immaterial too.

Gerson, Platonism vs Naturalism

Does an abstraction (such as information) depend on the existence of concrete particulars?

Aristotle would say "Yes", Plato would say "No". — Andrew M

I don't think it's so clear-cut. Let me ask you this - would the 'law of the excluded middle' be the case, even in the absence of anyone capable of grasping it?

I would think the answer is 'yes'. The same would go for real numbers and other logical laws. This is the meaning of 'objective idealism' i.e. there are ideas that are real and the same for all observers, but they are not phenomenal existents; in Platonic epistemology, they're the object of dianoia rather than pistis or doxa.

I am still in the process of studying Aristotle's hylomorphic dualism, which is his major difference with Plato, but I *think* the difference between the two lies in sense in which number (etc) can be said to exist in the absence of any observer. Much later, Augustine definitively solved this problem, by declaring that the ideas exist eternally in the divine intellect. On that note, see this brief but very interesting passage on intelligible objects.

So semantics evolves from the first hardware syntactical beginnings. — apokrisis

I think where I differ is that the ability evolves, but the object of cognition - in this case, ideas - does not evolve. That is the sense in which they're eternal.

I think Peirce has inherited the Platonist notion of 'the ideas', which is evident in such passages as these:

The only end of science, as such, is to learn the lesson that the universe has to teach it. In Induction it simply surrenders itself to the force of facts. But it finds . . . that this is not enough. It is driven in desperation to call upon its inward sympathy with nature, its instinct for aid, just as we find Galileo at the dawn of modern science making his appeal to il lume naturale. . . . The value of Facts to it, lies only in this, that they belong to Nature; and nature is something great, and beautiful, and sacred, and eternal, and real,— the object of its worship and its aspiration.

The soul’s deeper parts can only be reached through its surface. In this way the eternal forms, that mathematics and philosophy and the other sciences make us acquainted with will by slow percolation gradually reach the very core of one’s being, and will come to influence our lives; and this they will do, not because they involve truths of merely vital importance, but because they [are] ideal and eternal verities.

Peirce, Reasoning and the Logic of Things, edited by Kenneth Laine Ketner, (Harvard University Press, 1992), p. 11.

Now I know you might object on the basis of it being 'Platonia'. But nevertheless, I think the Aristotelian concept of the 'final cause', which semiotics apparently recognises, is inseparable from some such idea. It's an inconvenient truth, for us moderns. As Nietzsche was to say, much later, 'I am afraid we are not rid of God because we still have faith in grammar'. ;-)

(Right now, I have to go and countersink about 2,000 nails in a pool deck, so will be away for some hours.)

It just occurred to me that the sentry and the receiver of the sentry's signals could both be computers. — Janus

Computers are human instruments. They could replace flags and morse code, but the same arguments apply. It's similar to the point that Apokrisis often makes about the fundamental difference between physical and semiotic systems.

Can you cite any text — Janus

Have a look for the Lloyd Gerson argument that I have quoted numerous times in the thread. It's also in this video in this post. (This is a brief reference to an Aristotelian argument, from a lecture called Platonism vs Naturalism. Gerson is a leading academic specialist on Plato and Aristotle.) There's also a very nice modernised summary in this post.

Even better though one could be like Aquinas, both Platonist and Aristotelian. — Metaphysician Undercover

Edward Feser describes his school as Aristotelian-Thomistic (A-T) - it was his argument about 'the triangle'. You do realise that in many of your responses to that issue, you have taken a position which is basically nominalist, i.e. opposing the A-T analysis?

It is the fact that the same information/proposition/idea can be represented in any number of languages or physical media. I can write out the recipe for chocolate cake, or the specifications for building a box-girder bridge, in any number of languages or codes.

So, the material representation is completely different, but the information is the same. So how can the information be the same as the material representation?...This is where I tend towards dualism. — Wayfarer

I very much like Gerson's notion of the incommensurability of form and matter, but I find your use of the term "representation" to be equivocal, and your use of the term "information" to be confused.

Because I associate "mental representation" with semantics, and "material representation" with physical signs, I would re-phrase your conclusion as follows:

The signs (in this case, recipes and specifications encoded in different languages, i.e., physical information) are completely different, but their associated semantic information is the same.

Some of my current relevant working definitions:
1) Signs are empirical (i.e., physical and/or mental) objects (actualities) associated with semantic information.
2) Data (Form): asymmetries.
3) Pure Data (General, Platonic, Form): idea asymmetries.
a) Transcendental Data (General Form): transcendental asymmetries.
b) Universal Data (General Form): universal asymmetries.
4) Empirical Data (Particular, Aristotelian, Form): object asymmetries.
a) Physical Data (Particular Form): physical asymmetries.
b) Mental Data (Particular Form): mental asymmetries.
5) Information (Process Asymmetries): communicated data (form).

And so on, down to semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic data/information as types of mental data/information.

So, your question ("So how can the information be the same as the material representation?") doesn't make sense to me.

I think Gerson is talking about the incommensurability of pure data/information (i.e., universals) which is intelligible, and empirical data/information (i.e., "particular elements") which is matter.

To further confuse things (or not) my current working definition of communication is: pure data (general form) discovery and reaction(s), or empirical data (particular form) production, encoding, transmission, conveyance, reception, decoding, and reaction(s).

So, dualism in terms of separating physical and mental? I don't think so. But dualism in terms of separating reality and existence? Definitely. Maybe it's better to call the latter Platonism?

This is where I tend towards dualism. But the crucial caveat is, that mind is *not* a 'substance' in the sense that it is now universally misunderstood. It never appears as an object, but is always that to which everything appears. The profound error of modern philosophy is to reify or objectify mind and then ask what kind of thing it could be. It is simply 'that which grasps meaning', and in that sense the ground of meaning itself. — Wayfarer

If I define "object" as "actuality", can noumena be called mental objects? I agree that "mind" per se, does not exist, however; as a mass noun, it is the label we attach to the set of conditions experienced, and functions exercised, by an organism which produce its behaviour. So, calling it simply 'that which grasps meaning' is a gross oversimplification (which we can explore in greater detail if you like).

Reality, and, correspondingly scientific description, is given to the decimal point, it is what is quantifiable. — InternetStranger

It is 'given' only in respect of those aspects of reality which are amenable to quantitative measurement; which is a key point. For Galileo, and those afterwards, the 'primary qualities' were just those attributes which could be thus measured, and the mind of the observing subject implicitly located amongst the 'secondary qualities'. That is one of the crucial differences between modern and pre-modern epistemology and has had considerable consequences.

I take it that what Internet Stranger is referring to, is the Platonic or generally traditionalist view of the intelligibility of number (etc.) What I've been able to learn about this topic is that, for the traditionalist, the knowledge of numbers (etc) was different in kind to the knowledge of sensible particulars (i.e. objects as such), because such knowledge was immediate and apodictic. This means that in the knowledge of forms, ideas, geometric proofs and the like, the truth is apparent to 'the mind's eye' in a manner that is not possible with the knowledge of sensible objects. That is my interpretation of what is being referred to here; I'm not sure that I understand it very well, but I'm pretty sure (with all due respect) that you're not understanding it at all. And that's because you're viewing it from your modern/system science/biosemiotic perspective, rather than from the 'traditionalist' perspective. So here you need to be aware of the spectacles you're looking at the question through, so to speak.

One of my 'canned quotations' is apposite to this point; the passage in Lloyd Gerson, 'Platonism vs Naturalism', where Gerson is speaking about Aristotelian epistemology:

in thinking, the intelligible object or form is present in the intellect, and thinking itself is the identification of the intellect with this intelligible. Among other things, this means that you could not think if materialism is true… . Thinking is not something that is, in principle, like sensing or perceiving; this is because thinking is a universalising activity. This is what this means: when you think, you see - mentally see - a form which could not, in principle, be identical with a particular - including a particular neurological element, a circuit, or a state of a circuit, or a synapse, and so on. This is so because the object of thinking is universal, or the mind is operating universally.

….the fact that in thinking, your mind is identical with the form that it thinks, means (for Aristotle and for all Platonists) that since the form 'thought' is detached from matter, 'mind' is immaterial too.

Now, of course, I don't for a minute expect that will accept that, as in your ontology, there is no provision for anything immaterial and because of the obvious implied dualism. However this is what needs to be stated in order to understand what is actually being said, in my opinion.

(Actually I had drafted the above before Internet Stranger entered the post above this one, but I think there's a fair amount of agreement.)

Lloyd Gerson, What is Platonism? — Wayfarer

It's funny that you would mention Gerson's book, since I added it to the Platonism folder in my digital library a few hours ago, having found it thanks to the title of the first chapter: "Was Plato a Platonist?" (which was also the title of the paper by Konrad Rokstad that I referenced earlier).