Aristóteles ha sido considerado como el más grande biólogo de la antigüedad clásica, el primer zoólogo y el fundador de la anatomía comparada. En el presente ensayo examinaremos en qué medida el modelo normativo estipulado en los tratados lógicos se conforma a la recogida de datos empíricos presente en los tratados biológicos. En la segunda parte de la investigación examinaremos cómo los tratados lógicos habrían condicionado la explicación del funcionamiento del cerebro, llevando a Aristóteles a cometer un “error escandaloso”.

El artículo intenta indagar la naturaleza y la peculiaridad de las obras de Alejandro de Afrodisia. Botter argumenta que, como expresión de una cultura nueva, la cultura del “comentario”, las obras de Alejandro de Afrodisia representan una forma de cultura original y diferente respecto de la idea tradicional del desarrollo de las doctrinas de los grandes Maestros del pasado. La práctica de Alejandro apunta a aclarar Aristóteles a través de Aristóteles, modelando, en la medida de lo posible, el comentario (...) a los textos originales por medio de un fatigoso trabajo filológico de confrontación de cada frase singular con todo el resto del corpus de los tratados y con las principales interpretaciones de los predecesores. Según Botter, en el corpus de los comentarios Alejandro trata de aclarar las posiciones de Aristóteles con el objetivo de facilitar la comprensión del texto mismo. El comentario no consiste, por tanto, en una simple repetición, sino en una investigación incesante del significado originario del texto detrás de las interpretaciones históricas y de las intromisiones de otros intérpretes. (shrink)

A partire dall’analisi di alcuni passi del Timeo, il testo propone lo studio delle cause e dei tipi di infermità che affliggono la salute umana al fine di mostrare che la maniera in cui il filosofo concepisce le malattie è una chiave per approfondire l’antropologia e l’etica dell’ultimo Platone. Presupposto della ricerca è la visione olistica che caratterizza il Timeo, in cui la condizione umana influenza il livello socio-politico e il livello cosmico, i quali, a loro volta, condizionano e sono (...) condizionati dalla presenza dell’uomo. Per finalizzare lo studio abbiamo circoscritto l’analisi ai passi 69c-90c del Timeo. Starting with the analysis of some Timaeus passages, the text proposes the study of the causes and of the types of infirmity that afflict human health in order to demonstrate that the way the philosopher conceives illnesses is a key to get a deeper knowledge of the anthropology and ethics of the last Plato. Premise of the research is the holistic vision that characterizes the Timaeus, in which the human condition affects the socio political level and the cosmic level which, in their turn, affect and are affected by the human presence. To finalize the study, we analyzed the pages 69c-90c of the Timaeus. A partire dall’analisi di alcuni passi del Timeo, il testo propone lo studio delle cause e dei tipi di infermità che affliggono la salute umana al fine di mostrare che la maniera in cui il filosofo concepisce le malattie è una chiave per approfondire l’antropologia e l’etica dell’ultimo Platone. Presupposto della ricerca è la visione olistica che caratterizza il Timeo, in cui la condizione umana influenza il livello socio-politico e il livello cosmico, i quali, a loro volta, condizionano e sono condizionati dalla presenza dell’uomo. Per finalizzare lo studio abbiamo circoscritto l’analisi ai passi 69c-90c del Timeo. (shrink)

L’obiettivo del testo è di indagare se sia possibile attribuire a Platone una concezione dualista della natura umana, quindi se il filosofo possa essere inscritto nella linea dei pensatori che si sono posti il cosiddetto “Mind-Body Problem”. In molteplici passi dei dialoghi platonici si rinviene l’affermazione che il corpo e l’anima costituiscono due nature differenti e, in certa misura, incompatibili. D’altro canto, la relazione fra corpo e anima è costitutiva dell’uomo e si rende manifesta nell’atto della percezione. La presente riflessione (...) si svilupperà in tre momenti. Dapprima esporremo le ragioni per cui è giustificato affermare che esiste in Platone una differenza fra anima e corpo; quindi analizzeremo l’unione di anima e corpo come attributo essenziale della natura umana; termineremo l’indagine attraverso la ricerca della “ghiandola pineale platonica”, ossia l’elemento che permette di parlare di anima e corpo come di una relazione duale che si costituisce non come una unità indifferenziata, né come una giustapposizione di fattori estranei l’uno all’altro. La nostra proposta consiste nel mostrare che lo scambio di informazioni fra anima e corpo avviene attraverso una modifica nelle proporzioni matematico armoniche che articolano entrambe le potenze. (shrink)

Resumo: Neste artigo apresentamos um quadro geral da defesa de Aristóteles da teleologia natural em Physica II 8, analisando a aporia que ele levanta, neste contexto, no que diz a respeito do fenômeno da chuva e do vir a ser das partes dos animais. Em primeiro lugar, indicaremos os problemas envolvidos, e logo em seguida apresentaremos a nossa soluçáo para eles. Palavras-chave: Causas. Fenômeno acidental. Necessidade. Teleologia.

Aristóteles foi o primeiro filósofo que articulou uma taxonomia da ciência: os quatro livros que compõem os Analíticos oferecem uma teoria do conhecimento científico e os critérios que uma disciplina deve respeitar para receber a designação de ciência. Aristóteles, porém, foi também o fundador da ciência zoológica e o pai da anatomia comparada. Trata-se de uma questão já clássica, saber se o modo pelo qual Aristóteles desenvolve sua ciência dos animais na Historia Animalium e no De Partibus Animalium conforma-se aos (...) critérios científicos estabelecidos nos Analíticos Posteriores. Na primeira parte deste artigo, evidenciamos a relação entre as normas estipuladas nos Analíticos para a investigação científica e as pesquisas relatadas nos tratados naturais. Na segunda parte, examinamos a explicação fornecida pelo Estagirita acerca da função do cérebro, a qual leva o filósofo a incorrer num erro considerado escandaloso pelos pensadores que lhe sucederam. (shrink)

Aristóteles foi o primeiro pensador que articulou uma taxonomia do conheci-mento científico: os quatros livros dos Segundos Analíticos descrevem os critérios que uma disciplina qualquer deve respeitar e satisfazer para legitimamente receber a designação de ciência teorética. Mas Aristóteles é mesmo o criador das “ciências particulares”, ou seja, a biologia, a psicologia, a zoologia e, em geral, as ciências naturais. Trata-se de uma questão já clássica saber se o modo pelo qual Aristóteles desenvolve sua ciência dos animais con-forma-se aos padrões (...) normativos estipulados pela teoria da ciência nos Analíticos. Na men-talidade de muitos intérpretes ficou a convicção de que as obras biológicas de Aristóteles conformam-se a um padrão que utiliza apenas dados empíricos, ao passo que o conheci-mento nos Analíticos é estabelecido a partir de premissas primeiras e imediatas. Agora, nos Segundos Analíticos, encontramos exemplos provenientes da meteorologia, da botânica, da zoologia ao lado de exemplos matemáticos. Fica a pergunta: a metodologia axiomática de estilo matemático que o Estagirita propõe nos Analíticos é totalmente independente e ina-dequada para o estudo da biologia? Se for assim, Aristóteles não teria conseguido encaixar as ciências naturais nos padrões normativos expostos nos Segundos Analíticos. No presente estudo, pretendemos, pelo contrário, ressaltar o fato de que é razoável tomar os textos aristotélicos como orbitando em torno de uma mesma e grande pesquisa, a pesquisa cientí-fica, que inclui os Analíticos, assim como os tratados naturais.Aristotle was the first Greek thinker to articulate a taxonomy of scientific pursuits: the four books of the Analytics present a theory of scientific knowledge with a rigorous ac-count of what a body of propositions must be like in order to count as a theoretical science. But Aristotle was also the originator of “special sciences”. A longstanding problem about Aristotle’s philosophy of science is to understand if there is a conflict between the account of scientific explanation in the Posterior Analytics and the investigations reported in treatises such as the History of Animals, Parts of Animals, Generation of Animals 1. The Analytics restricts knowledge to what has been demonstrated from self-evident first principles. The sciences of nature seem to secure their results without such demonstrations: there are not axioms, nor theorems or proofs, nor definitions. Yet many of the examples in the Posterior Analytics are drawn from meteorology, botany and zoology, and are discussed side by side with mathe-matical examples. It is curious that a philosopher as systematic as Aristotle could formulate the first rigorous theory of scientific inquiry and demonstration, pepper the treatise in which he does so with biological examples, and not aim to structure his science of animals in ac-cordance with that theory. In this investigation I want to show that there is a relation betwe-en Aristotle’s official account of the definition in Posterior Analytics and the nature and the role assigned to definition in the Natural Treatises. (shrink)

The aim of this text is to investigate if it is possible to attribute to Plato a dualistic conception of human nature, that is, whether the philosopher can be inscribed in the line of thinkers who establish the so-called “Mind-Body Problem”. In various passages of Platonic Dialogues we can see that the body and the soul constitute two different and quite incompatible natures. On the other hand, the relationship between body and soul is constitutive of human being and is unquestionable (...) in the act of perception. Our study develops in three moments. At a first time we explain the reasons why it is justified to claim that there is in Plato’s Dialogues a difference between soul and body; afterwards, we analyze the relationship between soul and body just as an essential attribute of human nature; we bring about the investigation with the analysis of the “Plato’s pineal gland”, specifically, the element that allow us to consider the liaison between soul and body as a “dual relationship”, that is, not as an undifferentiated unit, nor as a juxtaposition of elements unrelated to each other. Our proposal consists in showing that the mathematical structure, proportional, harmonic and musical crosses all reality: the cosmic body and soul, as well as the human body and soul. (shrink)

Tradizionalmente esiste uno spartiaque fra la dottrina dell’azione attribuita a Socrate e quella attribuita a Platone ed esso è stato stabilito per la prima volta da Aristotele, a detta del quale Socrate ha difeso una dottrina intellettualista dell’agire umano, mentre Platone a partire dalla Repubblica distingue la parte razionale dell’anima da quella irrazionale, alla quale appartengono forze passionali che influenzano l’azione. Attraverso una rivisitazione della dottrina etica nel Protagora, difenderemo l’idea che l’intellettualismo pervade interamente la teoria dell’azione di Platone; ma (...) che, all’interno di esso, ragione e desiderio concorrono ad una azione congiunta. (shrink)

In the three books of the De Anima Aristotle ranges over a diverse array of philosophical and scientific topics, such as the nature of life, self-movement, the senses, perception, imagination, thought, and the relation between mind and body. As a result, this work may seem to be a strange collection of only marginally related philosophical and biological topics given our modern sensibilities. Nonetheless it is united by Aristotle's basic concern for the nature and functioning of life in all its diverse (...) forms. This inquiry offers modern readers significant insight into contemporary debates in the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

The name tells the thing if it's a name. If it doesn’t tell the thing, it isn’t a name. This is the puzzling and enigmatic theory proposed by Cratilo in the homonymous Plato’s dialogue. The thesis in Hermogenes already sounds hermetic, an "oracle" which requires the presence of an interpreter to clarify what remains hidden in the terms of the sentence. According to the disciple of Heraclitus, the names are by nature guaranteed to impart pure truths, that is, they are (...) all right, at least as many as are real names. An imperfectly fitting name isn’t an inappropriate name. It would not be a name at all. In this text we would like to examine the Platonic Cratylus with respect to the meaning that lies behind the words of Cratylus and clarify his position in face of Socrates's refutation. We will therefore concentrate our attention on the last section of the dialogue devoted to the exchange between Cratylus and Socrates, especially pages 427e-440e. (shrink)

This paper responds to the contributions by Alexander Bird, Nathan Wildman, David Yates, Jennifer McKitrick, Giacomo Giannini & Matthew Tugby, and Jennifer Wang. I react to their comments on my 2015 book Potentiality: From Dispositions to Modality, and in doing so expands on some of the arguments and ideas of the book.

The phrase "natural kind term" has come into the linguistic and philosophical literature in connection with well-known work of Kripke (1972) and Putnam (1970, 1975a). I use that phrase here in the sense it has acquired from those and subseqnent works on related topics. This is not the transparent sense of the phrase. That is, if I am right in what follows there are words for kinds of things existing in nature which are not natural kind terms in the current (...) sense - e.g. planet, woman, and weed. I use the term "nondescriptional", following Salmon (1981), to mean "lacking a Fregean sense", where a Fregean sense is taken to be a property or group of properties semantically associated with an expression which determines its denotation. I hope that the term "nondescriptional" will be clarified in subsequent discussion, but perhaps a few words about it and its opposite, "descriptional", would be useful here. These terms (as Salmon notes (p.15, n. 11)) should be taken as technical terms. The idea is that descriptional words, of which bachelor is the overwhelmingly favorite example, express a semantic content, or sense, which is what mediates their denotation. Entities fall in their denotation in virtue of possessing the property or properties expressed as their sense. (It is not necessary, however, that this sense be as easily paraphrasable with descriptive synonyms as it is typically held to be in the case of bachelor, or even that it be paraphrasable at all.) In the case of nondescriptional words there is no Fregean sense to mediate the link between word and object. Hence such terms are described by what Salmon, following Kaplan, calls "the theory of direct reference". What it is that does associate such terms with their denotations is another question which will be touched on briefly at the end. I have several aims in this paper. The first is to defend a conservative position on nondescriptionality. I will argue that relatively few natural language words have this property. My other aims are primarily clarificatory. Among the issues I would like to clarify are those connected with the determination of this property and flae explanation of why it exists, its relationship with other properties such as rigid designation and essentiality, and its significance for lexical semantics. The organization of the paper is as follows. The first section identifies the position taken here on the question of which expressions are nondescriptional and provides a general defense of it. The second section is a critical examination of criteria associated with nondescriptionality. In the third section provide further defense for the conservative position, and in the fourth section we turn to related issues in lexical semantics. (shrink)

Ulrich Beck's best selling Risk Society established risk on the sociological agenda. It brought together a wide range of issues centering on environmental, health and personal risk, provided a rallying ground for researchers and activists in a variety of social movements and acted as a reference point for state and local policies in risk management. The Risk Society and Beyond charts the progress of Beck's ideas and traces their evolution. It demonstrates why the issues raised by Beck reverberate widely throughout (...) social theory and covers the new risks that Beck did not foresee, associated with the emergence of new technologies, genetic and cybernetic. The book is unique because it offers both an introduction to the main arguments in Risk Society and develops a range of critical discussions of aspects of this and other works of Beck. (shrink)

Szabó follows Heim in viewing familiarity, rather than uniqueness, as the essence of the definite article, but attempts to derive both familiarity and uniqueness implications pragmatically, assigning a single semantic interpretation to both the definite and indefinite articles. I argue that if there is no semantic distinction between the articles, then there is no way to derive these differences between them pragmatically.

Dispositionalism about modality is the view that metaphysical modality is a matter of the dispositions possessed by actual objects. In a recent paper, David Yates has raised an important worry about the formal adequacy of dispositionalism. This paper responds to Yates’s worry by developing a reply that Yates discusses briefly but dismisses as ad hoc: an appeal to a ’plenitude of powers’ including such powers as the necessarily always manifested power for 2+2\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} (...) \begin{document}$$2+2$$\end{document} to be 4. I argue that the reply is not ad hoc at all, by defending the metaphysics of dispositions that should underly it. I then argue, first, that a proper understanding of dispositions’ degrees provides us with an argument for such necessarily always manifested dispositions; second, that all the natural attempts to block that argument can be resisted without being ad hoc; and third, that pragmatic considerations explain our intuitive resistance to the ascription of necessarily always manifested dispositions. Dispositionalism can be formally adequate after all. (shrink)

This paper explores the prospects for dispositional accounts of abilities. According to so-called new dispositionalists, an agent has the ability to Φ iff they have a disposition to Φ when trying to Φ. We show that the new dispositionalism is beset by some problems that also beset its predecessor, the conditional analysis of abilities, and bring up some further problems. We then turn to a different approach, which links abilities not to motivational states but to the notion of success, and (...) consider ways of implementing that approach. Our results suggest that there are principled disanalogies between abilities and disposition which prevent any dispositional account of abilities from succeeding. (shrink)

Cette introduction explique la perception, reconnue par Husserl sous le titre de "donation par esquisses". Il s'agit d'opérer une réduction radicale qui va de la critique du néant au monde comme a priori de tout apparaître. A ce monde correspond un sujet dont le sens d'être fait problème puisqu'il est à la fois un moment du monde et en rapport avec la totalité comme telle.

L'oeuvre de Merleau-Ponty est tout entiere commandee par le souci de mettre rigoureusement en oeuvre le mot d'ordre husserlien de retour aux choses memes, ce qui exige, conformement au geste amorce par Husserl dans la Krisis, de reconnaitre l'oeuvre de l'idealisation -c'est-a-dire de l'objectivation- la meme ou elle se fait oublier, afin de la neutraliser. A l'instar de Bergson, pour qui la tache de la philosophie etait d'aller chercher l'experience au-dessus du tournant ou, s'inflechissant dans le sens de l'utilite, elle (...) devient proprement l'experience humaine, pour Merleau-Ponty, la tache de la pensee est de se situer a ce tournant ou l'experience s'accomplit et se voile a la fois dans des productions ou elle se fait proprement humaine, de definir un sens de l'Etre anterieur a la bifurcation du preobjectif et de l'oeuvre idealisante. Le but des recherches est de tenter de clarifier la nature exacte du tournant de l'experience ainsi que le projet phenomenologique merleau-pontien. (shrink)

In this imaginative and provocative book, Barbara Goodwin explores the question of how lottery systems can achieve egalitarian social justice in societies with seemingly ineradicable inequalities. She begins with the utopian fable of Aleatoria, a country not unlike our own in the not-too-distant-future, where most goods are distributed by lottery--even the right to have children. She then analyzes the philosophical arguments for and against lottery distribution and a comparison of "justice by lottery" with other contemporary theories of justice. Goodwin (...) also applies her theory to practical problems in the real world which could be--or have been--justly resolved by the use of lotteries, such as military drafts, jury duty, and immigration eligibility. She demonstrates that in many areas, including that of political power, a regular and random reallocation of goods would be a fairer and more democratic method than the distributive systems found in liberal democracies today. (shrink)

Contemporary issues involving knowledge and science examined from a constructivist-pragmatist perspective often labeled "relativism." Individual chapters include a review of the difference between constructivist-pragmatist epistemology and "social constructivism;" an examination of recent writings by Bruno Latour; a critique of computational methods in literary studies; a skeptical look at current efforts to "integrate" the humanities and the natural sciences; and reflections on the social dynamics of belief in relation to denials of climate change and to hopes expressed by environmentalists.

An extended analysis and account of the psychological/social/cognitive dynamics of intellectual controversy. The immediate focus is the recurrent failure of intellectual engagement, in encounters having to do with with truth, knowledge, language, science, and/or objectivity, between, on the one hand, rationalist-realist-objectivist philosophers and/or those they have instructed and, on the other hand, constructivist-pragmatist ("postmodern") theorists and/or those persuaded by their critiques and/or alternative views. Individual chapters examine critiques and defenses of objectivist-rationalist views in law, politics, literary studies, ethics, communication theory, (...) and philosophy of science. Theorists whose views are discussed critically at some length include legal scholar Robin West and philosophers Jürgen Habermas, Karl-Otto Apel, and Philip Kitcher. (shrink)

This book presents the most important problems of reference and considers their solution. It presupposes no technical knowledge, presents analyses from first principles, illustrates every stage with examples, and is written with verve and clarity. This is the ideal introduction to reference for students of linguistics and philosophy of language.

This book considers the context of the colonial policies of Britain, Locke's contribution to them, and the importance of these ideas in his theory of property. It also reconsiders the debate about John Locke's influence in America. The book argues that Locke's theory of property must be understood in connection with the philosopher's political concerns, as part of his endeavour to justify the colonialist policies of Lord Shaftesbury's cabinet, with which he was personally associated. The author maintains that traditional scholarship (...) has failed to do justice to Locke by ignoring the implications of contemporary British imperial policy for the interpretation of his political thought. (shrink)

A critical examination of the charge of self-refutation, particularly as leveled by orthodoxy-defending philosophers against those maintaining epistemologically unorthodox, especially relativistic or skeptical, views. Beginning with an analysis of its classic illustration in Plato’s *Theaetetus* as leveled against Protagoras’s “Man is the measure ...,” I consider various aspects of the charge, including logical, rhetorical, pedagogic, affective, and cognitive.

Advocates of literary Darwinism, cognitive cultural studies, neuroaesthetics, digital humanities, and other such hybrid fields now seek explicitly to make the aims and methods of one or another humanities discipline approximate more closely the aims and methods of science, and at their most visionary, they urge as well the overall integration of the humanities and natural sciences. This essay indicates some major considerations—historical, conceptual, and pragmatic—that may be useful for assessing these efforts and predicting their future. Arguments promoting integration often (...) involve dubious teleological models of intellectual history and betray limited understandings of the distinctive epistemic orientations and cultural functions of the humanities vis-à-vis the sciences. Recurrent institutional difficulties encountered by scholars and/or scientists in hybrid fields reflect steep prestige differentials between the humanities and sciences, along with significant differences of training, experience, style, and temperament. Meanwhile, both the sciences and humanities are being shaken up by technological and related intellectual developments. Though worrisome, the new disciplinary configurations are thus likely to play out in surprising and, not inconceivably, positive ways. (shrink)

This paper investigates Slovak migrants’ use of new media to build social capital. It draws on data from a pilot study with 36 Slovaks living in the UK, and on content analysis of the main Facebook page for Czechs and Slovaks in the UK. The data suggest that Facebook is used for sharing emotions rather than to build a community and share practical information. While Facebook and Skype are used to maintain preexisting strong ties in the country of origin, face-to-face (...) contact and mobile phones are used to maintain ties within the UK. However, social media do not seem to facilitate the formation of weak ties prior to migration, with face-to-face contact being dominant upon arrival. Transnational migration experience forms a separate dimension within the participants’ identity, independent from social capital. The data are discussed in relation to findings from previous studies about Slovak migrants in the Republic of Ireland. (shrink)

Das menschliche Leben vollzieht sich in der Spannung von "Natürlichkeit und Künstlichkeit". Jede Epoche definiert ihre Lebensvollzüge in dieser Spannung neu. Die Gegenwart verzeichnet in ihrem technisch zivilisierten Ambiente neue Schübe von "Künstlichkeit", denen kompensatorisch neue Ideen von "Natürlichkeit" entgegentreten. Der Sport ist davon zentral betroffen. Diese Tagung versucht, von unterschiedlichen philosophischen Fragestellungen her sich dem Problem der Künstlichkeit unseres gegenwärtigen Lebens (und des Sports) zu nähern und das Postulat der "Natürlichkeit" in seiner regulativen Funktion zu begreifen. Die nun in (...) Schriftfassung vorgelegten Vorträge dieser Tagung bieten Diskussionsgrundlagen für notwendige Überlegungen, wenn es darum geht, Konzepte von Bewegung, Spiel und Sport kulturell-historisch zu verstehen und moralisch-ethisch zu kritisieren und zu würdigen. (shrink)