Revision of the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--Laval University, 1999.

In a Socratic spirit of coming to a better understanding of man who finds himself in the midst of a "crisis about knowledge," this dissertation proposes to examine the human subject as a cognitive animal by turning to the long and rich tradition of Aristotelian philosophy, largely ignored today, to focus on and gain inspiration from one of its principal currents of reflection: nous inasmuch as this refers to the human intellectual operation intuiting the substantial level of reality, which can (...) then anchor scientific knowledge of it. ;The examination of nous is based on the text Posterior Analytics II.19, in which Aristotle briefly presents the "habit of nous" as the culmination of a non-rational-discursive process by which the principles of demonstration are acquired. By looking at each of the stages mentioned in the text, there is offered the opportunity to study in detail the different human cognitive capacities and the cognition they provide. This also allows for a comparison and contrast of the capacities and the relationships that can be established between them, which is helpful in understanding man as a cognitive animal, in general, and in determining, in particular, the place and role of intuition in human cognition. ;Starting with Aristotle's views on logic and science, it is established that the rational-discursive operations of the intellect presuppose other non-rational-discursive operations of the intellect, which opens the door to another intellectual operation that can complement the first-mentioned. This other intellectual operation is seen to be closely related to sense cognition and its powers, the means through which the intellect makes contact with external reality. The most important of the different levels of cognition provided by the senses is its highest level, experience; and since human experience involves the activity of the intellect, induction of the principles of science is seen to be an act of the intellect starting from the intelligibility of sense experience. It is concluded, finally, that this act of the intellect is essentially intuitive, consisting mainly in an intellectual grasp of a substance, an insight into its essence. (shrink)

The question of how, according to Aristotle, the principles of science are acquired remains contested among scholars. An aspect of this broader topic concerns the role of induction, and whether it is able to provide us with knowledge of natural necessity without the assistance of intuition. In a recent publication in this journal, David Botting argues in favour of the enumerative/empiricist interpretation of induction and criticizes the intuitive/rationalist interpretation of it, a version of which was defended in one of my (...) publications. He thinks that Aristotle is like Hume: both understand the cognitive process of induction similarly; and, both are equally skeptical about acquiring knowledge of natural necessity through induction. My reply argues that reading Aristotle’s induction in Humean terms is problematic in several respects. I argue, in addition, that natural necessity can be known through induction if nous is involved. My explanation of how this is possible relies on thinking of the act of noēsis in terms of an act of recognition. Botting claims, furthermore, that Aristotle only differs from Hume in that the former does have a non-inductive and non-intuitive method by which natural necessity may become known, and which Botting calls “the constructive proof of necessity”. My reply examines this method, showing how certain steps in it rely on cognitive acts that are really acts of intuition merely expressed in Humean terms. Despite the criticisms, I end with suggestions for how Botting’s account might offer original paths of research to Aristotle scholars seeking to answer the question of the acquisition of principles of science, particularly in the early stages of this process. (shrink)