Book 6: The Intellectual Virtues
Section 3: Systematic knowledge
Let us begin, then, from the beginning, and discuss these ways of knowing again. Let it be assumed that there are five ways of knowing by which the soul possesses truth in the form of affirmation or denial: [15] (1) skill (technê), (2) systematic knowledge (epistêmê),[1] (3) prudence (phronêsis), (4) philosophical wisdom (sophia), and (5) insight (nous). We do not include supposition (hupolêpsis) and opinion (doxa) because these can be false. [In other words, there can be false suppositions and false opinions, whereas there can’t be false knowledge.]
Now what systematic knowledge is, if we are to speak exactly and not follow mere similarities, will be clear from what follows. We all suppose that what we know through systematic knowledge does not admit of [20] being otherwise. In the case of things that do admit of being otherwise, when they fall outside our theory, we are unaware of what is or is not true of them. Therefore, what systematic knowledge can grasp are things that are necessarily true and therefore eternal. For things that are true by absolute necessity are all eternal. And things that are eternal cannot come to be or pass away.
Furthermore, every kind of systematic knowledge seems to be capable of being taught. And what can be known by systematic knowledge [25] is learnable. All teaching begins from what is already known, as we say in the Analytics. For teaching proceeds sometimes by induction and sometimes by deduction. Induction leads to the starting-point or principle, namely, the universal, whereas deduction proceeds from universals. There are therefore starting-points or principles from which deduction proceeds that are not reached by deduction. [30] Thus induction must provide them.
Systematic knowledge, then, is the disposition that enables one to demonstrate what one knows and has the other features we specify in the Analytics. For a person has systematic knowledge when he is in a way confident and the principles of the discipline are well-known to him. For if the principles are not better known to him than his conclusions, he will only have systematic knowledge incidentally.
Let this, then, be taken as [35] our account of systematic knowledge.
- "Systematic knowledge" translates the Greek word epistêmê. A traditional alternative translation is "science" or "scientific knowledge." But what Aristotle means includes more than "science" as we normally think of it today. The knowledge he calls epistêmê includes disciplines like mathematics, music theory, and logic, as well as natural sciences like physics. Thus, I translate epistêmê here as "systematic knowledge." ↵
