David Charles presents a major new study of Aristotle's views on meaning, essence, necessity, and related topics. These interconnected views are central to Aristotle's metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of science, and are also highly relevant to current philosophical debates. Charles aims to reach a clear understanding of Aristotle's claims and arguments, to assess their truth, and to evaluate their importance to ancient and modern philosophy.

Aristotle initiated the systematic investigation of perception, the emotions, memory, desire, and action. David Charles argues that Aristotle's account of these phenomena is a philosophically live alternative to conventional modern thinking about the mind: it offers a way to dissolve, rather than solve, the mind-body problem we have inherited.

Aristotle's account of essences is distinct from that offered by Platonists and by scientific realists. Further, while Aristotle's essences are part of the fabric of reality, they can be grasped only by those with certain definitional and explanatory practices. Thus, his account differs from that of the Platonist. Standard criticisms of Aristotle's essentialism are, I argue, misdirected against a Platonist Aristotle of legend and do not successfully engage with Aristotle's own account.

Aristotle, in the Historia Animalium, follows the explanation‐involving approach to classification that he developed in the pattern of the Posterior Analytics. Thus, he draws in his theory of animal classification on his explanatory account of soul functions developed in De Anima. However, his project encounters a severe problem: he failed to uncover in his study of biological phenomena the unified, causally basic essences that his theory of definition required. I consider whether Aristotle can resolve this crisis while remaining true to (...) the basic features of his Analytics paradigm. (shrink)

Aristotle argues in Posterior Analytics B.3–7 that accounts of definition unsupported by understanding of the explanatory structure of kinds are incapable of giving us knowledge of the nature of kinds. The formal or logical level of analysis needs to be supplemented by considerations drawn from a study of causes.

Aristotle seeks to resolve the problems raised in Posterior Analytics B.3–7 by arguing that our practices of definition and explanation are interdependent. It is not possible to define kinds without appeal to their causal structure, nor is it possible to single out the relevant causal structure without appeal to what is required for good definition. This is why Aristotle holds that the answer to the questions, ‘What is F?’ and ‘Why is F as it is?’ are the same. Neither definition (...) nor explanation can be completed without assistance from the other. (shrink)

Aristotle's view of the interdependency of explanation and definition rests on a metaphysical thesis: essences are what determine the nature of kinds in such a way as to make their causal structure completely intelligible to us and to locate them in their own distinctive niche in a nexus of genera and species. We can rationally base our understanding of the first principles of science on our understanding of this causally based pattern of kinds. The world, so understood, contains its own (...) intelligible structure, which Aristotle identifies with the Active Intellect. (shrink)

Aristotle's account of the meaning of natural kind terms and the essence of natural kinds is distinguished from that offered by Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam. With regard to, Aristotle did not require that one who understands a natural kind term and goes on to discover the essence of the kind grasps at the outset that the kind exists or has an essence yet to be discovered. With regard to, Aristotle separates essences from necessary properties and connects essences with definition (...) and explanation. is discussed in Part I of the book, in Part II. While the book contains detailed exegesis of Aristotle's text, it also includes a trail for readers mainly interested in grasping his overall philosophical picture. (shrink)

Aristotle, in Posterior Analytics B.10, separates three stages in scientific enquiry: knowledge of the signification of the relevant terms, knowledge of the existence of the kind, and knowledge of the essence of the kind. One can, in all relevant cases, achieve the first stage of enquiry without achieving the second or third stages. So, knowledge of the signification of the relevant terms does not essentially involve knowledge of the existence of the kind in question.

Aristotle, in Posterior Analytics B.3–7, prepares for the three‐stage view by arguing that no one account can tell us both the essence of a kind and the signification of the term that names that kind. Here, he lays the foundation for the separation of two questions, which we would represent as follows: ‘What does “triangle” signify?’ and ‘What is the triangle?’ This distinction provides him with a way to address and resolve Meno's paradox of enquiry.

In De Anima, Aristotle develops an analogy between perception and thought. This is based, I argue, on his account of what causally determines the object of the relevant perception or thought. I examine how his account accommodates visual error and erroneous thoughts and the analogy between the role of light in colour perception and the Active Intellect in the case of thought. Aristotle's account of the object of thought in De Anima supports his account of the signification of names in (...) De Interpretatione. This supports claim in Ch. 4. (shrink)

Aristotle's approach to the definition of composite substances in the central books of the Metaphysics follows the explanation‐involving pattern set out in the Posterior Analytics. The definition of such substances draws on resources based in his account of teleological causation The relevant Forms provide the basis of answers to both the questions, ‘What is F?’ and ‘Why is F as it is?’. Neither question can be answered satisfactorily in isolation. Aristotle's explanation‐involving account of definition is seen to be at work (...) throughout his discussion in the central books of Metaphysics. (shrink)

Aristotle, in the Posterior Analytics, connects his account of definition and explanation with the theory of division. The features that figure in the relevant explanation include those that distinguish the kind in its relevant genus. His account of differentiation into genera and species is strongly interconnected with his explanation‐involving account of definition.

In De Interpretatione, Aristotle offers an account of the conditions under which a term like ‘man’ signifies the kind man. This involves, in the case of simple names, the name being correlated with a thought, whose content is determined by efficient causal contact with the kind in question. Aristotle offers a separate account of how the signification of empty names, such as ‘goatstag’, is determined. His account, however, generates a problem: he wishes to hold that the signification of ‘man’ is (...) determined by causal contact with an existing kind and also that we do not know in grasping the signification of this term that the kind exists. Can he hold on to both these claims? (shrink)

Aristotle's solution to the problem raised in Ch. 4 depends on his account of how we arrive at thoughts on the basis of experience. In his view, we standardly acquire a term for a kind on the basis of contact with members of a kind, without thereby knowing that the kind in question exists. Further, we can grasp such terms without knowing that the kind has a unifying basic feature that explains its necessary properties. Our understanding of the kind is (...) to be compared with that of a craftsman and not that of a proto‐scientist. Aristotle's view is distinguished from several twentieth‐century accounts of these issues. (shrink)

Socrates' greatest philosophical contribution was to have initiated the search for definitions. In Definition in Greek Philosophy his views on definition are examined, together with those of his successors, including Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Galen, the Sceptics and Plotinus. Although definition was a major pre-occupation for many Greek philosophers, it has rarely been treated as a separate topic in its own right in recent years. This volume, which contains fourteen new essays by leading scholars, aims to reawaken interest in a (...) number of central and relatively unexplored issues concerning definition. These issues are briefly set out in the Introduction, which also seeks to point out scholarly and philosophical questions which merit further study. (shrink)

What is the role of "teleological explanation" in aristotle's account of psychological and biological phenomena? this paper argues that it provides a way of understanding these phenomena which is not reducible to purely material explanation, And which allows for the possibility of a full material account of the conditions under which these phenomena occur. It also offers an alternative account of hypothetical necessity to that proposed by john cooper.

Advocates of ordinary aesthetics argue that aesthetic experiences found in everyday life can have an impact on our ethical being. This raises the question of how, specifically, action arises from aesthetic experience. Although this matter affects both Aesthetics and Ethics, the current literature provides few details on potential mechanisms. Using neurophysiological evidence, this article proposes specific action profiles and associated mechanisms for aesthetic experiences. To achieve this, it is argued that aesthetic experience originates within the mind and that ordinary aesthetic (...) experiences are logically permissible. Subsequently, a proposed landscape of aesthetic experience is derived. Mechanisms for pathways from experience to action are provided for each category of aesthetic experience. In sum, this provides a tangible bridge between Aesthetics and Ethics, enabling a better understanding of how one’s ethical being is influenced by certain experiences. (shrink)

The decision tree of life is colossal. While physicists and metaphysicians explore the possibility that the multiverse grows larger at every decision, it is the ethicist’s lot to consider the paths chosen. That is to say, ethics is generally concerned with the build-up to a decision point. But what happens afterwards? And how do our choices influence our future decision-making?

These days it seems like everyone knows that we should do something about climate change, but there also seems to be a lot of inertia to take action. Until relatively recently, a common view was that governments would provide the solutions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) special report “SR15”, released in 2018, established that individuals should also contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in order to meet the mitigation requirements to limit warming to 1.5 C. Publicly, there are (...) plenty of good intentions from both individuals and governments, but there’s not a lot of action on either side. So, what’s going on? (shrink)

[David Charles] Aristotle, it appears, sometimes identifies well-being with one activity, sometimes with several, including ethical virtue. I argue that this appearance is misleading. In the Nicomachean Ethics, intellectual contemplation is the central case of human well-being, but is not identical with it. Ethically virtuous activity is included in human well-being because it is an analogue of intellectual contemplation. This structure allows Aristotle to hold that while ethically virtuous activity is valuable in its own right, the best life (...) available for humans is centred around, but not wholly constituted by, intellectual contemplation. /// [Dominic Scott] In Nicomachean Ethics X 7-8, Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of eudaimonia, primary and secondary. The first corresponds to contemplation, the second to activity in accordance with moral virtue and practical reason. My task in this paper is to elucidate this distinction. Like Charles, I interpret it as one between paradigm and derivative cases; unlike him, I explain it in terms of similarity, not analogy. Furthermore, once the underlying nature of the distinction is understood, we can reconcile the claim that paradigm eudaimonia consists just in contemplation with a passage in the first book requiring eudaimonia to involve all intrinsic goods. (shrink)