O presente artigo tem como objetivo principal esclarecer a concepção da tradição megárica acerca do conceito de capacidade (δύναμις), tal como apresentada no livro Theta da Metafísica de Aristóteles. A análise se faz necessária devido à falta de atenção aristotélica na formulação da tese adversária dos megáricos, pois em nenhum momento Aristóteles parece nos oferecer argumentos plausíveis que justifiquem de maneira adequada a tese de seus oponentes. Partindo desta dificuldade de reconstrução do argumento megárico e visando lhe oferecer uma (...) maior dignidade, o estudo irá, em primeiro lugar, destrinchar possíveis argumentos que sustentem a tese no contexto da referida obra. Em seguida, irá provar que, mesmo a tese megárica não sendo tão facilmente refutável como uma primeira leitura poderia sugerir, há em sua estrutura problemas graves, que se evidenciam diante da concepção aristotélica da capacidade. (shrink)

Resumen: El presente artículo tiene por objetivo la reconstrucción del argumento dominador atribuido a Diodoro Crono y su revisión filosófica a la luz de la crítica aristotélica al actualismo extremo de la Escuela de Mégara en Metafísica IX, 3. Desde esta perspectiva, el trabajo aspira a situar el proyecto teórico de Diodoro en el marco de su disputa filosófica con la metafísica aristotélica y su concepto de δύναµις, con el fin de traducir esta querella dialéctica en lo que, (...) a nuestro juicio, constituye una disputa teórica de importantes consecuencias prácticas: la disyunción excluyente entre el azar y el destino como paradigmas de interpretación conceptual y de acción moral.: This paper aims to reconstruct and analyze the Master Argument attributed to Diodorus Chronus under the perspective of Aristotle's criticism of extreme actualism in Metaphysics IX. 3. From this point of view, the paper locates Diodorus' theoretical project within the framework of his philosophical dispute with Aristotle's metaphysics and the Aristotelian concept of δύναµις, trying to show that what really lies behind this dialectical confrontation is a theoretical problem of important practical consequences: the excluding disjunction between chance and destiny as paradigms of conceptual interpretation and moral action. (shrink)

Eu examino cada meandro do esforço de Aristóteles identificar vários usos de termos filosóficos essenciais em sua Metafísica, V.9-17.

Tradução dos livros Z e H da Metafísica de Aristóteles, com introdução e notas. Translation of Aristotle's Metaphysics Books VII and VIII into Portuguese, with Introduction and Notes.

Translation of Aristotle's Metaphysics IV and VI, with notes. The translation is preliminary and intended as a provisional teaching tool to be also used in seminars and discussions with peers in order to reach a more elaborated version.

Translation of Aristotle's Metaphysics I-III into Portuguese, with a few notes and introduction. The translation, which was made at 2007, is preliminary and its publication was intended to provide a didactic tool for courses as well as a provisional resource in research seminars. It needs some revision. I am currently working (slowly...) on the revision of the translation and a new revised one will surely appear at some point.

En este trabajo, presentado por primera vez en 1959 en forma de conferencia, el autor expone las líneas fundamentales del argumento que, poco después, desarrollará extensamente en El problema del ser en Aristóteles. Ya aquí encontramos afirmado que la investigación de Aristóteles conocida con el título de Metafísica se escinde en dos cuestiones igualmente originarias y que nunca llegan a converger, a saber, la cuestión del comienzo y la cuestión de la unidad. La permanente simultaneidad de ambas preguntas constituye (...) lo que es preciso reconocer como problemática aristotélica, y ello frente a la pretensión de los comentaristas sistematizantes, pero también de quienes intentan resolver la aludida escisión apelando a una supuesta evolución del pensamiento de Aristóteles. (shrink)

This is a translation of Aristotle's Metaphysics V (Delta) 18-30 into Portuguese. (A different publication, with a different DOI, presents the commentaries that accompany this translation).

Translation of Aristotle's Metaphysics V.1-8 with a few notes.

Tradução: METAFÍSICA DE ARISTÓTELES LIVRO V, 9-18.

Translation of Aristotle's Metaphysics Lambda into Portuguese.

This paper examines Aristotle’s notion of priority with the specific aim of capturing the sort of priority that characterizes the primacy of substances in his metaphysics. I reject the traditional interpretation, which understands the ontological priority of substances in terms of independent existence. But there are rather two sorts of priority: the ontological priority of substances should be understood in terms of completeness, whereas the ontological priority of “substances-of-something” (the essences) is a causal-explanatory priority. Furthermore, an important piece of Aristotle’s (...) argument against Platonism is that these two sorts of priority – namely, the completeness priority and the causal-explanatory priority – should be kept distinct. (shrink)

Translation of Aristotle’s Metaphysics IX and X (Theta & Iota) into Portuguese, with a few notes, experimental glossary and introduction. The translation, which was made at 2004, is preliminary and its publication was intended to provide a didactic tool for courses as well as a provisional resource in research seminars. It needs some revision. I am currently working (slowly...) on the revision of the translation and a new revised one will surely appear at some point.

Saint Thomas Aquinas explains how is it that there must be among sciences one which is the most perfect and orders all of them, and that may be therefore trully called wisdom. This science has for its object the common entity and studies simultaneously the first causes, the most universal principles and the separated substances. Aquinas sustains that this science receives three different names: theology or divine science, for it treats separated substances; metaphysics, for it studies the entity and the (...) transphysical things that follow it; and first philosophy, for it studies the first causes of things. (shrink)

Nos proponemos mostrar cómo para la Ontología Modal del Aristóteles griego, según el logos central de su Filosofía Primera (el IX, 6-10), la verdad ontológica tiene estatuto práctico y poético de transmisión histórica comunitaria. Lo cual funda la asamblea universal e isonómica de la legislación política. Mostraremos a su vez cómo la ontología hermenéutica contemporánea y el pensamiento de la diferencia francés beben abundantemente de esta comprensión de la verdad que pertenece de lleno a la ontología modal-temporal que piensa los (...) modos del ser-tiempo de la acción posibilitante (enérgeia) y la potencia (dúnamis) en Aristóteles. (shrink)

This paper, looking over the life and the texts of the greek philosophers and analyzing the Pythagorean harmony, the two stories of Thales, the outstanding personality of Xenophanes, the humorous sense of Democritus and the Socratic irony, shows that philosophy in the beginning was understood not like an abstract reflection, but like a joyful search of the excellence in the human life.

This article deals with Averroes’s interpretation of Metaph. Ε 1, where Aristotle discusses the nature and object of metaphysics, as well as its place in the hierarchy of sciences. Among Averroes’s predecessors, al-Kindī seems to see a coincidence between metaphysics and theology, since God can be described as the “first cause of everything”. However, al-Fārābī and Avicenna discovered that “first philosophy” could be conceived as an ontology distinct from theology; moreover, they considered theology to be only a part of metaphysics, (...) not even the most important one. In the Great Commentary on Metaphysics - where the Arabic translation of the work by the Jacobite monk Usṭāth is quoted, Averroes often just paraphrases the original passages. One may infer that theology in the strict sense is merely mentioned by way of example. In the Epitome of Metaphysics, the objects of metaphysics are “general” ones; metaphysics studies the “absolute being” and cannot be identified with theology as “pertaining to God”. (shrink)

Pode-se ver que, ao escrever EE I 8, tendo adotado a tese da multivocidade do ser e do bem, Aristóteles não tinha ainda como estabelecer uma ciência única do ser, portanto, estava, em um certo sentido, sem metafísica. A noção de significação focal, criada para resolver o problema da diversidade de tipos de amizade em EE, não foi ainda aplicada ao ser; na EN, ao contrário, a diversidade dos tipos de amizade é explicada diferentemente e, ao que tudo indica. (...) a significação focal já foi aplicada ao ser, tornando enfim possível uma metafísica compatível com sua irredutível multivocidade. Até então, porém, Aristóteles teve um período de desencanto metafísico; neste artigo. persigo algumas das marcas que tal período deixou em seus escritos. (shrink)

Italian translation with facing Greek text of Alexander's commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics I-V, and of pseudo-Alexander's commentary on the remaining books of the Metaphysics.

Si consideramos la declaración de la Ética Eudemia I 8, Aristóteles parece estar lejos de la metafísica pues, habiendo adoptado una tesis sobre la dispersión originaria del ser en las diferentes categorías, no tenía cómo pensar una ciencia única del ser, ya que, según parece, aún no había aplicado al ser una noción de unidad focal de la significación, que fue concebida, justamente en la EE, para explicar el fenómeno de la amistad. Cuando el pros hen legesthai sea aplicado (...) al ser entonces será posible una metafísica o ciencia única del ser por fuera del diapasón platónico. Hasta ese momento, sin embargo, Aristóteles se encuentra sin metafísica. En este artículo, procuro investigar a qué se parece tal período de desencanto metafísico de Aristóteles y qué huellas nos dejó eventualmente, de esta época. (shrink)

This reference work on twentieth-century studies of Aristotle’s Metaphysics consists of a “presentation” by Giovanni Reale; an editor’s introduction; tables of the international team of collaborators; the bibliography itself; and indices of concepts, Greek terms, and authors. Reale praises the work for fulfillment, within the limits of the possible, of the four requirements of such a project: completeness, accuracy of reference, clear and useful arrangement of material, and an intelligible account of the various items listed.

Centrado en el análisis de la primera de las «Cuestiones a la Metafísica de Aristóteles» de Duns Escoto, este artículo indaga el camino que sigue Duns Escoto para establecer que Dios es el objeto de la metafísica. En este lugar, Duns Escoto asume una posición novedosa con respecto al objeto de la metafísica, pues en sus obras sobre lógica, había señalado que el objeto de esta disciplina es la sustancia, y en la Ordinatio había sostenido que es (...) el ente en cuanto ente. En la primera parte, se muestra el planteamiento de la pregunta y la estructura de la referida cuestión; la segunda parte expone las objeciones de Escoto a Avicena y Averrroes y su propuesta inicial de que la sustancia es el objeto de la metafísica, correspondiente a la primera redacción de la primera de las «Cuestiones Metafísicas». Luego, la tercera parte expone cómo llega Escoto a la tesis de que Dios y el ente en cuanto ente son el objeto de la metafísica, a partir de la renovación del concepto aristotélico de ciencia. Finalmente, se pondera hasta qué punto esta ampliación significa un cambio radical en la concepción metafísica de Escoto. (shrink)

These are the commentaries (or notes) for Aristotle's Metaphysics V (Delta) 18-30. This file must be read together with the translation into Portuguese, which has been published as a different item, with a different DOI. In the Introduction, I discuss many issues about Aristotle's jargon, Aristotle's style and Aristotle's awareness of many philosophical problems that nowadays we locate within the branch Philosophy of Language.

The use of critical exposition of previous doctrines is a methodological procedure usual in Aristotle. But the distinctive characteristic of Book I of the Metaphysics is that, rather than to establish a new doctrine, a review of predecessors serves to confirm the own concepts to be used in the evaluation of the doctrines examined. This imposition of own terms has cost him the charge of distorting historical understanding. With the detailed analysis of the criticisms of Plato's theory of Ideas in (...) Metaphysics I, 9, we intend to show a) that the criticism of manipulation and distortion of his predecessors' views overshadow the degree to which Aristotle's own positions emerge from a critical review of previous thought and b) that the imposition of own terms does not suppose a distortion but a proposal of solution to the problems that previous theories have left unresolved. (shrink)

Este artículo presenta una interpretación de dos discutidos pasajes de Metafísica VI 3 y XI 8 en los que se encuentra la argumentación de Aristóteles encaminada a evitar la necesidad universal con base en la existencia de las coincidencias. Esta argumentación ha suscitado múltiples e incompatibles interpretaciones desde la Antigüedad hasta nuestros días. En ellas se ha presentado la argumentación del Estagirita en un abanico que va desde comprenderla como una postura compatible con el más fuerte determinismo, hasta una (...) que requiere un muy generalizado indeterminismo. En diálogo con estas interpretaciones, se defenderá una lectura según la cual estos pasajes están diseñados para argumentar no contra el determinismo causal sino contra la predeterminación. (shrink)