Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

PHENOMENALISM AND RELATIVISM 1778. There is a sharp distinction between, on the one hand, things asthey appear to us and in general things as we conceive them and,on the other hand, the things themselves; indeed, thisdistinction is so sharp that we can think and speak aboutappearances even if it is impossible to think and speak about thethings themselves.We will see later that <strong>Aristotle</strong>’s response to phenomenalism and relativismis especially directed against this presupposition of phenomenalism andrelativism.STEP 6This goes a long way towards tracing the source of phenomenalism, i.e.tracing the best line of reasoning available to the defender ofphenomenalism. Still, we have not yet succeeded in generatingphenomenalism. For the combination of claims 2, 3 and 7 still does notentail phenomenalism. Phenomenalism claims that:9. All our appearances and all our beliefs are true.(=phenomenalism)But claims 2, 3 and 7 entail at most that:10. All our appearances and all our beliefs are true of things as theyappear to us and as we conceive them.But we cannot simply assume that for a belief to be true of things as theyappear to us and as we conceive them is the same as for a belief to be,simply, true. We can see that it would be wrong to assume this, if wesuppose that:11. It may be possible in principle to think and speak of the thingsthemselves, even if it is not possible for us to think and speak ofthe things themselves (hence even if we can only think andspeak about things as they appear to us and in general as weconceive them).