Aristotle

This chapter reassesses the role of Aristotle in Gadamer’s work. Gadamer is sometimes read as preferential to Plato over Aristotle. Such a reading, however, displaces the centrality of Aristotle to Gadamer’s thought. Gadamer saw Aristotle, and not Plato, as the first phenomenologist. Gadamer consequently expressed a great debt to Aristotle, not only for modeling a phenomenological approach to philosophy, but also for the illuminating phenomenological descriptions that Aristotle gave. Both his philosophical approach and the insights it yielded serve as compelling (...) evidence for Aristotle’s continued relevance for us today. (shrink)

Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 1, January 2022.

Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 1, January 2022.

In this article, I interpret Book V of the _Nicomachean Ethics_ in which Aristotle presents a geometrical problem to explain which is the Best Criterion for the Distribution of Political and Economic Rights and Duties among Citizens, starting from the empirical evidence that there are three opposing opinions on which is the fairest distribution criterion: for some it is Freedom, for others Wealth, and for others Virtue. Against the almost unique and most quoted interpretation of the geometrical problem, I present (...) my mathematical solution, which I arrived at thanks to the Doctrine of the Four Causes and the Theory of the Mean. My thesis is that the Mean Term of Distributive Justice is the Golden Ratio between the opposite criteria of distribution, and the unjust distribution is the one that violates this ratio. This solution allows us to understand what is the Rational Principle at the basis of just distribution: that is, Geometrical Equality as opposed to Arithmetical Equality. Indeed, by applying the geometric figure of the Golden Triangle to the different political constitutions, I show, in line with _Politics_, that the Best Form of Government is the Aristocratic Politeia, i.e., a mixture of Democracy, Oligarchy and Aristocracy. (shrink)

I show that Aristotle’s psychological hierarchy of vegetal, animal, and rational existence is not an exclusion of plants but a highlighting of their status as definitive of life. To the objector who replies that life is cheap in ancient thought, it will be demonstrated that plants are not just alive according to Aristotle, but exemplify completeness (in a way not available to, e.g., basic beings like grubs and certain insects). In fact, in us too it is the vegetative soul principle (...) that ensures our participation in a crucial form of divinity. (shrink)

We propose a new system of modal logic to interpret Aristotle's theory of the modal syllogism which while being inspired by standard propositional modal logic is also a logic of terms and which admitting a (sound) extensional semantics involving possible worlds. Although this logic does not allow a fully faithful formalisation of the entirety of Aristotle's syllogistic as found in the Prior Analytics it sheds light on various fine-grained distinctions which when made allow us to recover a fair portion of (...) Aristotle's results. This logic allows us also to make a connection with the various axioms of modern propositional logic and to perceive to what extent these are implicit in Aristotle's reasoning. Further work wil involve addressing the question of the completeness of this logic (or variants thereof) together with the extension of the logic to include a calculus of relations, some instances of which are found, as Slomkowsky has shown, in the Topics. (shrink)

The relation between sport and a good life presents a fruitful philosophical challenge and it has been discussed extensively within the philosophy sport literature. This paper will investigate the...

Este capítulo se propõe a analisar os fundamentos utilizados por Aristóteles (2006) para justificar a escravidão. Para isso, é tomada como chave de leitura a categorização das atividades humanas fundamentais proposta por Hannah Arendt (2008). A escravidão no mundo grego antigo era tida como uma forma de liberar o cidadão dos afazeres domésticos e do trabalho para que pudesse ter ócio e, assim, dedicar-se às atividades entre seus iguais, sobretudo à política.

This paper is about the interplay between intuition and reason in Aristotle’s moral psychology. After discussing briefly some other uses of ‘intuition’ in Aristotle’s texts, I look closely at A...

This paper is a discussion of Aristotle’s account of actions that come about because of ignorance as found in his Nicomachean Ethics 3.1. I argue that such actions do not originate in the agent, bu...

Aristotle has repeatedly stated in his works that 'being has several senses'. Is this to be regarded as his pluralistic ontology, an approach that seems to be too nascent? If so, how can this newfound approach in ontology be linked to the ideas of the father of this science, i.e. Aristotle? These are the questions that the present article seeks to answer. First, we will show that Aristotle thinks of 'being' in four senses. Then, step by step he proceeds to (...) leave different senses aside, insofar as only one sense remains: being in the sense of the figures of the categories. We argue, then, that it is better to found Aristotle's ontological pluralism upon the fourfold sorts, instead of the tenfold categories. We will provide some reasons for this preference, i.e. in defense of the fourfold sorts and against the tenfold categories. Each of these four modes of being will be discussed. Finally, a version of ontological pluralism will be provided and attributed to Aristotle: Sorting Version. According to this version of pluralism, we will demonstrate how Aristotle speaks of the ontologically fundamental structure of the world. (shrink)

Our contemporary politics faces the paradoxical problem that while we are inundated with images on our screens, we nevertheless seem to lack creative political imagination to conceive of solutions to our global problems. One account for this paradox is Chiara Bottici’s suggestion that the constant stream of virtual images produced qualitatively alters them to such an extent that they become ends in themselves: thus, spectacularizing our politics. My claim, against Bottici’s, is that it is not the case that the increase (...) in images created causes a qualitative change; rather, the increase in images created results from an already occurred qualitative change that images are created for their own sake instead of as a response to the particular situation’s determining conditions. The concept of the imaginal, insofar as it is unhinged from these local conditions, is itself the precondition for the very problem of political spectacularization that we face. To support my claim, I utilize Aristotle’s concepts of imagination, desire, and practical truth to show that without truth conditions determined by the particular, the political imaginal ends up operating under the motive of image for its own sake—which is, at bottom, desire for its own sake—thus feeding into the creation of more images devoid of concrete solutions. (shrink)

Daniel King’s book The Earliest Syriac Translation of Aristotle’s Categories may be considered the first critical edition of a Syriac translation of Aristotle’s works. Thus, it raises a number of questions of textual criticism that may be discussed against the background of D. Gutas’ research in the field of Graeco-Arabic studies. This article provides a critical review of the book and a description of the new online publication of the anonymous Syriac translation of Aristotle’s Categories in the HUNAYNNET database.

Scholars have long considered de Philosophia and de Caelo to be in contradiction regarding the nature of the heavenly bodies, particularly with respect to the activity proper to the element composing them. According to the accounts we have of de Philosophia, Aristotle seems to have put forth that stars move because they have minds, and, according to Cicero’s account of the lost text, they choose their actions out of free will. In de Caelo, however, Aristotle seems only to consider that (...) stars engage in the activity of circular motion because it is in their nature to do so, as it is in the nature of, e.g. fire to move upwards or Earth to move downwards. In this paper, I argue against the longstanding view that there is an incompatibility between these two “early” cosmological texts of Aristotle. I aim to show that these two texts endorse complementary, not contradictory, views of the heavenly bodies. I argue that in de Philosophia, Aristotle attributes to stars the intellective counterpart of the spatial motion which is developed in greater depth in de Caelo, while in de Caelo, we see hints of Aristotle’s view in de Philosophia that the stars are also minds and are able to rationally cognize their particular good – a point which is shown in de Caelo 292a18–293a14, where Aristotle attributes both life and praxis to the heavenly bodies. The overarching view which I present of these two texts is that while de Caelo approaches the heavenly bodies qua bodies and de Philosophia approaches them qua minds, they are still examining one and the same substance and that Aristotle has not changed his mind regarding the basic nature of such a substance in the (supposed) interim between writing de Philosophia and de Caelo. Rather, we find echoes of de Caelo in de Philosophia, and echoes of de Philosophia in de Caelo, which speaks to the fact that Aristotle maintains one view of the heavenly bodies which he presents over the course of these two texts. (shrink)

Why does Aristotle commit to the existence of simple bodies? Why does Aristotle conduct an investigation into simple bodies as part of his his natural philosophy? These are the two questions I want to focus on in this dissertation. The answer to these questions, in my view, can be found in Aristotle's investigations into simple bodies in De Caelo and De Generatione et Corruptione. On the basis of my interpretation of these two treatises, I argue in this dissertation that Aristotle's (...) investigation into simple bodies contributes significantly to his explanation of change, and amounts to a single, coherent, systematic account, based in first principles, of all change. Chapter 1 argues that Aristotle?s investigation of simple bodies in De Caelo is conducted through a cosmic method. This method, as I argue, is for the sake of the completeness and systematicity of his investigation of simple bodies. More specifically, I argue that, only if Aristotle's investigation of simple bodies is conducted in a cosmological background, can he put forward a systematic investigation of an exhaustive list of the fundamental components of all possible physical things in the universe. Chapter 2 argues that, in De Caelo I.2, the introduction and differentiation of simple bodies is achieved entirely by differentiating simple motions, and that Aristotle's aim in De Caelo I.2 is to provide an explanatory account of all possible locomotion. This contradicts the traditional interpretation of De Caelo I.2, which considers how, and how completely, Aristotle uses the differentiation of simple magnitudes to differentiate simple bodies, and which assumes that he introduces the notion of a simple body independently of the notion of a simple motion. This is why Aristotle identifies simple bodies with the fundamental components of the universe. Chapter 3 argues that the simple body that is neither heavy nor light (ether) is excluded from the field of generation and corruption, so that it does not contribute to Aristotle's explanation of the changes other than locomotion by forming the physical things that are subject to these changes. I argue that the exclusion of ether from the field of generation and corruption is necessary for his overall explanation of the changes other than locomotion, because it leads to the conclusion that only the sublunary simple bodies constitute the corruptible physical things and, in this way, contribute to Aristotle's explanation of the changes other than locomotion. Chapter 4 argues that Aristotle's investigation of simple bodies in De Caelo contains a rigorous deduction according to which the number of the sublunary simple bodies is ultimately settled. My reconstruction of this deduction is a refutation of the traditional view, according to which Aristotle has not provided sufficient reasons for the existence of four sublunary simple bodies in De Caelo. On the basis of my reconstruction of Aristotle?s deduction of simple bodies in De Caelo, it can be answered what are the simple bodies that are going to contribute to Aristotle's explanation of change. Chapter 5 argues that the reason why Aristotle moves from his characterization of simple bodies in De Caelo to that in GC is that his characterization of simple bodies in De Caelo is insufficient to support his view that the changes other than locomotion, especially generation and corruption, are everlasting. I argue against the traditional view, which says that Aristotle introduces a new characterization of simple bodies in GC because his characterization of simple bodies in De Caelo cannot differentiate simple bodies into four groups sufficiently. I argue that it is for the sake of providing us with an explanation of the changes other than locomotion that Aristotle moves on to his characterization of simple bodies in GC from that in De Caelo. Chapter 6 investigates why simple bodies have to be investigated in GC, and argues that this is because the matter of physical things comes to be from the mixture of simple bodies. While something like this view has been recognized in regard to Metaphysics Θ, I argue that this distinction is defended in Aristotle's theory of mixture in GC. This account of the way in which matter comes to be from simple bodies will significantly contribute to our interpretation of Aristotle's explanation of change. Chapter 7 explains, on the basis of Physics I and GC I, how simple bodies contribute to Aristotle's explanation of changes by forming the matter of physical things. I argue that, only if there is such matter, can the possibility of the substantial changes and the distinction between the substantial changes and other changes be explained. I conclude that, for Aristotle, change cannot be sufficiently explained without his commitment to the existence of simple bodies. (shrink)

Philosophical Investigations, EarlyView.

This article is the first one to offer an investigation, from a biological perspective, of “natural philia” or “kin-based” philia in Aristotle’s practical philosophy. After some preliminary considerations about its place in Aristotle’s ethical treatises, the discussion focuses on Aristotle’s biology. Here we learn that natural philia, couched in terms of a biological praxis rather than a trait of character, is widespread in the animal kingdom, although in different ways and to varying degrees. To account for such differences, Aristotle establishes (...) a Scala Philiae in two different biological texts—Historia Animalium and Generation of Animals—where natural bonds in animals are classified in view of their strength and duration. Each level of Aristotle’s Scala is examined. Finally, the argument returns to Aristotle’s ethical and political texts, drawing greater attention to the biological mechanisms that underlie natural philia in human beings. I conclude that natural philia provides one fundamental biological building-block of Aristotle’s ethics and politics. (shrink)

Original publisher: London: Burns, Oates, and Washbourne, 1934.

Aristotle's modal syllogistic has been an object of study ever since the time of Theophrastus; but these studies have been somewhat desultory. Remarkably, in the 1990s several new lines of research have appeared, with series of original publications by Fred Johnson, Richard Patterson and Ulrich Nortmann. Johnson presented for the first time a formal semantics adequate to a de re reading of the apodeictic syllogistic; this was based on a simple intuition linking the modal syllogistic to Aristotelian metaphysics. Nortmann developed (...) an ingenious de dicto analysis. Patterson articulated the links between the modal syllogistic and the metaphysics, using an analysis which strictly speaking is neither de re nor de dicto. My own studies in this field date from 1976, when my colleague Peter Roeper and I jointly wrote a paper "Aristotle's apodeictic syllogisms" for the XXIInd History of Logic Conference in Krakow. This paper contained the disjunctive reading of particular affirmative apodeictic propositions, which I still favour. Nonetheless, I did not consider that paper's results decisive or comprehensive enough to publish, and my 1981 book The Syllogism contained no treatment of the modal syllogism. The paper's ideas lay dormant till 1989, when I read Johnson's and Patterson's initial articles. I began publishing on the topic in 1991. Gradually my thoughts acquired a certain comprehensiveness and systematicity, till in 1993 I was able to take a semester's sabbatical to write up a draft of this book. (shrink)

Simplicius' commentary on Aristotle's Categories is the most comprehensive philosophical critique of the work ever written, representing 600 years of criticism. In his Categories, Aristotle divides what exists in the sensible world into ten categories of Substance, Quantity, Relative, Quality and so on. Simplicius starts with a survey of previous commentators, and an introductory set of questions about Aristotle's philosophy and about the Categories in particular. The commentator, he says, needs to present Plato and Aristotle as in harmony on most (...) things. Why are precisely ten categories named, given that Plato did with fewer distinctions? We have a survey of views on this. And where in the scheme of categories would one fit a quality that defines a substance - under substance or under quality? In his own commentary, Porphyry suggested classifying a defining quality as something distinct, a substantial quality, but others objected that this would constitute an eleventh. The most persistent question dealt with here is whether the categories classify words, concepts, or things. (shrink)

A historical and philosophical reassessment of the impact of Aristotle and early-modern Aristotelianism on the development of Kant’s transcendental philosophy. Kant and Aristotle reassesses the prevailing understanding of Kant as an anti-Aristotelian philosopher. Taking epistemology, logic, and methodology to be the key disciplines through which Kant’s transcendental philosophy stood as an independent form of philosophy, Marco Sgarbi shows that Kant drew important elements of his logic and metaphysical doctrines from Aristotelian ideas that were absent in other philosophical traditions, such as (...) the distinction of matter and form of knowledge, the division of transcendental logic into analytic and dialectic, the theory of categories and schema, and the methodological issues of the architectonic. Drawing from unpublished documents including lectures, catalogues, academic programs, and the Aristotelian-Scholastic handbooks that were officially adopted at Königsberg University where Kant taught, Sgarbi further demonstrates the historical and philosophical importance of Aristotle and Aristotelianism to these disciplines from the late sixteenth century to the first half of the eighteenth century. (shrink)

Offers an extremely bold, far-reaching, and unsuspected thesis in the history of philosophy: Aristotelianism was a dominant movement of the British philosophical landscape, especially in the field of logic, and it had a long survival. British Aristotelian doctrines were strongly empiricist in nature, both in the theory of knowledge and in scientific method; this character marked and influenced further developments in British philosophy at the end of the century, and eventually gave rise to what we now call British empiricism, which (...) is represented by philosophers such as John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume. Beyond the apparent and explicit criticism of the old Scholastic and Aristotelian philosophy, which has been very well recognized by the scholarship in the twentieth century and which has contributed to the false notion that early modern philosophy emerged as a reaction to Aristotelianism, the present research examines the continuity, the original developments and the impact of Aristotelian doctrines and terminology in logic and epistemology as the background for the rise of empiricism.Without the Aristotelian tradition, without its doctrines, and without its conceptual elaborations, British empiricism would never have been born. The book emphasizes that philosophy is not defined only by the ‘great names’, but also by minor authors, who determine the intellectual milieu from which the canonical names emerge. It considers every single published work of logic between the middle of the sixteenth and the end of the seventeenth century, being acquainted with a number of surviving manuscripts and being well-informed about the best existing scholarship in the field. ​. (shrink)

Written by renowned Aristotle scholar Sir David Ross, this study has long been established as one of the foremost surveys of Aristotle's life, work and philosophy. With John L. Ackrill's introduction and updated bibliography, created for the sixth edition, the book continues to serve as a standard guide, both for the student of ancient history and the general reader.

Aristotle’s modal syllogistic is his study of patterns of reasoning about necessity and possibility. Many scholars think the modal syllogistic is incoherent, a ‘realm of darkness’. Others think it is coherent, but devise complicated formal modellings to mimic Aristotle’s results. This volume provides a simple interpretation of Aristotle’s modal syllogistic using standard predicate logic. Rini distinguishes between red terms, such as ‘horse’, ‘plant’ or ‘man’, which name things in virtue of features those things must have, and green terms, such as (...) ‘moving’, which name things in virtue of their non-necessary features. By applying this distinction to the Prior Analytics, Rini shows how traditional interpretive puzzles about the modal syllogistic melt away and the simple structure of Aristotle’s own proofs is revealed. The result is an applied logic which provides needed links between Aristotle’s views of science and logical demonstration. The volume is particularly valuable to researchers and students of the history of logic, Aristotle’s theory of modality, and the philosophy of logic in general. (shrink)

Aristotle was the founder not only of logic but also of modal logic. In the Prior Analytics he developed a complex system of modal syllogistic which, while influential, has been disputed since antiquity--and is today widely regarded as incoherent. Combining analytic rigor with keen sensitivity to historical context, Marko Malink makes clear that the modal syllogistic forms a consistent, integrated system of logic, one that is closely related to other areas of Aristotle's philosophy. Aristotle's modal syllogistic differs significantly from modern (...) modal logic. Malink considers the key to understanding the Aristotelian version to be the notion of predication discussed in the Topics--specifically, its theory of predicables and the ten categories. The predicables introduce a distinction between essential and nonessential predication. In contrast, the categories distinguish between substantial and nonsubstantial predication. Malink builds on these insights in developing a semantics for Aristotle's modal propositions, one that verifies the ancient philosopher's claims of the validity and invalidity of modal inferences. While it acknowledges some limitations of this reconstruction, Aristotle's Modal Syllogistic brims with bold ideas, richly supported by close readings of the Greek texts. (shrink)

This book is an extensive review & analysis of Aristotelian thought as received & adapted by such medieval commentators as Ammonius, Philoponus, Boethius, al-Farabi, Yahya ibn 'Adi, Avicenna, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Martin of Dacia, Simon of Faversham, John Duns Scotus, Peter of Spain, Robert Kilwardby, William of Ockham, & Giles of Rome. The discussions range from metaphysics to logic, linguistics, & epistemology, encompassing such topics as being, god, causation, actuality, potentiality, universals, individuation, signification, cognition, certainty, infallibility, error, ignorance, analogy, (...) grammar, interpretation, foundationalism, & the eucharist & transubstantiation. (shrink)

This book investigates Aristotle’s views on abstraction and explores how he uses it. In this work, the author follows Aristotle in focusing on the scientific detail first and then approaches the metaphysical claims, and so creates a reconstructed theory that explains many puzzles of Aristotle’s thought. Understanding the details of his theory of relations and abstraction further illuminates his theory of universals. Some of the features of Aristotle’s theory of abstraction developed in this book include: abstraction is a relation; perception (...) and knowledge are types of abstraction; the objects generated by abstractions are relata which can serve as subjects in their own right, whereupon they can appear as items in other categories. The author goes on to look at how Aristotle distinguishes the concrete from the abstract paronym, how induction is a type of abstraction which typically moves from the perceived individuals to universals and how Aristotle’s metaphysical vocabulary is "relational.’ Beyond those features, this work also looks at how of universals, accidents, forms, causes and potentialities have being only as abstract aspects of individual substances. An individual substance is identical to its essence; the essence has universal features but is the singularity making the individual substance what it is. These theories are expounded within this book. One main attraction in working out the details of Aristotle’s views on abstraction lies in understanding his metaphysics of universals as abstract objects. This work reclaims past ground as the main philosophical tradition of abstraction has been ignored in recent times. It gives a modern version of the medieval doctrine of the threefold distinction of essence, made famous by the Islamic philosopher, Avicenna. (shrink)

Includes selections from Metaphysics, Logic, Physics, Psychology, Ethics, Politics, and Poetics.

The present article contains the conference delivered by Prof. C.J. Rowe at the III International Ancient Philosophy Workshop.There he exposes the main guidelines of the forthcoming edition of Aristotle´s Eudemian Ethics which he has prepared for the Scriptorum Classicorum BibliothecaOxoniensis.

Three times in Book 1 chapter 13 of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle says desire partakes of reason in a way. There is a consensus view in the literature about what that claim means: desire has no intrinsic rationality, but can partake of reason by being blindly obedient to the commands of reason. I argue this consensus view is mistaken: for Aristotle, adult human desire has its own intrinsic rationality, and while it is to be obedient to reason, it is not (...) blind obedience, for when reason tells desire to obey, it includes an explanation supporting its order which desire can at least potentially understand. Thus, the nature of human desire, and also of the characteristic interaction of desire and reason, is much different than it is standardly taken to be. (shrink)

In Meta. Λ 8, Aristotle argues that the heaven –and, thus, the cosmos – is numerically unique on the grounds that its first unmoved mover is numerically unique. The latter is numerically unique because it is ‘essence’ and does not have matter. “But whatever is many in number has matter.” I refer to this inference as Aristotle’s metaphysical argument for the uniqueness of the cosmos. A problem arises: If the subsidiary unmoved movers of the planetary spheres are, like the prime (...) unmoved mover, immaterial substances and belong to the same species of unmoved mover, it seems that they could not be numerically distinct from that first unmoved mover – while Aristotle maintains that they are, in fact, numerically distinct. That is, as immaterial substance, it/they could not be individuated by matter. However, if they do, as souls or soul-like forms, inform matter, it seems that there is no reason why the first unmoved mover, which moves the sphere of fixed stars or outermost, celestial sphere, should not similarly inform the matter of that celestial sphere. In the latter case, Aristotle’s argument for the uniqueness of the heaven and cosmos would be vitiated. The first unmoved mover would be the form of the outermost celestial sphere; and there would evidently be no metaphysical reason why that form could not be materially instantiated by other outermost celestial spheres, each enclosing its own cosmos distinct from our own. I argue that neither of the two salient options for resolving this problem with Aristotle’s metaphysical argument for the uniqueness of the cosmos is satisfactory. The result, so I maintain, is Aristotle’s diremption of divinity into two essentially unrelated aspects: divinity as autonomous, ‘hermetic’ cognition and divinity as ultimate cause of cosmic motion and change. (shrink)

This paper offers a novel interpretation of the nature and role of logical argumentation in Aristotle’s natural philosophy. In contrast to the standard domain interpretation, which makes logikôs argumentation the contrary of phusikôs, relying on principles drawn from outside the domain of natural science, I propose that the essential or defining feature of logikôs argumentation is the use of principles that are general relative to the question under investigation. My interpretation is developed and illustrated with a close textual analysis of (...) Aristotle’s explanation of mule sterility in Generation of Animals II 8. (shrink)

In this article I explain three puzzling features of Simplicius’ use of syllogistic reconstructions in his commentary on Aristotle’s Physics: Why does he reconstruct Aristotle’s non-argumentative remarks? Why does he identify the syllogistic figure of an argument but does not explicitly present its reconstruction? Why in certain lemmata does he present several reconstructions of the same argument? Addressing these questions, I argue that these puzzling features are an expression of Simplicius’ assumption that formal reasoning underlies Aristotle’s prose, hence they reflect (...) his attempt to capture as faithfully as possible Aristotle’s actual mode of reasoning. I show further that, as a consequence of this seemingly descriptive use of syllogistic reconstructions, logic serves Simplicius not only as an expository and clarificatory tool of certain interpretations or philosophical views, but also motivates and shapes his exegetical stances and approach. (shrink)

Damascius has become well-known in recent scholarship for his unique, radical use of the aporetic method, both to highlight the inherent limits of human thought and to reveal crucial tensions in Neoplatonic metaphysics. Though much attention has been paid to the subjective or skeptical aspects of Damascius’ aporiai, little has been noted of the parallels between Damascius’ aporetic strategy in the De Principiis and Aristotle’s own in Metaphysics B. This article analyzes the parallel by looking at Aristotle’s aim for aporiai (...) in Metaphysics B.1 and closely comparing, as a case study, the De Principiis’ first aporia alongside Metaphysics B’s first aporia. Despite Damascius’ aporia dealing with different principles compared to Aristotle’s, the aporetic method for both ultimately exposes the limitations of thought and, exactly in the domain of these limitations, clarifies our concepts in relating to reality and attaining determinate understanding of principles. (shrink)

In this paper I explore the ways in which Alexander of Aphrodisias employs and develops so-called ‘common notions’ as reliable starting points of deductive arguments. He combines contemporary developments in the Stoic and Epicurean use of common notions with Aristotelian dialectic, and axioms. This more comprehensive concept of common notions can be extracted from Alexander’s commentary on Metaphysics A 1–2. Alexander puts Aristotle’s claim that ‘all human beings by nature desire to know’ in a larger deductive framework, and adds weight (...) to Aristotle’s use of the common understanding of the notion of ‘wisdom’. Finally I will indicate how these upgraded common notions are meant to play an important role in the general framework of metaphysics as a science. (shrink)