Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

ARISTOTLE’S METHOD IN METAPHYSICS 71appear to be four ways in which our recognition of particular aporia helpsus to search for knowledge. First, recognizing an aporia provides us withmotivation to search. This is because recognizing a particular aporia causesus to be in a mental state of aporia; recognizing a puzzle makes us puzzle.Second, the aporia gives direction and aim to our search. This is because ofthe logical structure of the aporia, its dilemmatic structure. Third, theaporia provides us with a way of telling (a criterion) whether or not wehave found what we are searching for; for we have found what we aresearching for when we have adequately answered the aporia. But this, ofcourse, is not a criterion that we can apply with perfect, let alone infallible,confidence; for what constitutes an adequate answer to an aporia may itselfbe unclear. Fourth, a collection of related aporiai may help us tocircumscribe a particular subject area; it is the subject area characterized bysuch and such, and similar, aporiai. For example, <strong>Aristotle</strong> thinks thatmetaphysics is the subject characterized by the aporiai listed in book III,and similar ones.Let us look closer at these different ways in which our recognition ofparticular aporiai contributes to our ability to search for knowledge. First,if we recognize and are struck by a particular aporia, this will providemotivation for our searching for knowledge; for we will naturally want toanswer the aporia that we are struck by. An aporia is after all a questionthat one has oneself raised or become struck by; and it is a question thatwill appear pressing to one because of its very nature, i.e. because of therational pull in apparently opposite and conflicting directions. It was bychallenging people with such aporiai that Socrates tried to stimulate them—like a gadfly—to search for knowledge. In other words, it seemsimpossible to recognize and be struck by an aporia but at the same time notto have a desire to search for an answer, although of course it is possiblethat other desires may prove stronger. We should note here that ourrecognition of aporiai provides us with a desire to search for knowledge ina way that does not presuppose a general desire, the desire for knowledge.Rather, because the recognition of a particular aporia is naturally associatedwith a desire to search for an answer, it is naturally associated with thedesire for knowledge. So the desire for knowledge is generated by, andperhaps initially simply consists in, the desire to answer the aporia. Weshould also note that to search for knowledge here is, initially at least,nothing over and above to search for an answer to the aporia; no moregeneral or demanding conception of knowledge need initially be involved.We might even go as far as saying that, initially at least, to know here issimply to know the answer to a question, or how to answer a question—aquestion that amounts to an aporia.