Resumen En el presente artículo se explora la pertenencia de los libros M y N al programa general de la Metafísica de Aristóteles. Los libros XIII y XIV han quedado en el trasfondo de la Metafísica, como una suerte de agregado editorial, del cual se puede prescindir para la comprensión de la propuesta aristotélica. En el presente artículo, sin embargo, se asume un punto de partida diferente, que consiste en integrar estos libros al núcleo de la propuesta de la Metafísica, (...) enten diendo que ellos son claves para completar el panorama de la teoría general de la sustancia, o ousiología, que guía todos los libros metafísicos. De este modo, la discusión de M y N sobre números y principios viene a concluir la cuestión de la sustancia como causa y principio, anunciada desde el inicio de la Metafísica y desarrollada en sus libros centrales.This article explores the belonging of books M and N to the generalprogram of Aristotle's Metaphysics. Books XIII and XIV have remained in the background of Metaphysics, as a kind of editorial aggregate, which can be dispensed with for the understanding of the Aristotelian proposal. In this article, however, a different startingpoint is assumed, which consists in integrating these books into the core of the proposal of Metaphysics, understanding that they are key to completing the panorama of the general theory of substance, or ousiology, which guides all metaphysical books. Thus, the discussion of numbers and principles within M and N concludes the question of substance as cause and principle, announced from the beginning of Metaphysics and developed in its central books. (shrink)

The Holocaust throws the study of the history of philosophy into crisis. Critiques of Western thinking leveled by such thinkers as Adorno, Levinas and, more recently, postmodern theorists have suggested that Western philosophy is inherently totalizing and that it must be read differently or altogether abandoned after Auschwitz. This article intentionally rereads Aristotle and Hegel through the shattered lens of the Holocaust. Its refracted focus is the question of ontological identity. By investigating the manner in which the totalizing dimensions of (...) Aristotle’s thinking are both eclipsed and implicitly endorsed by Hegel’s appropriation of Aristotle’s conception of God, and further by following the surplus of Hegel’s (mis)interpretation back into the heart of Aristotle’s ontology where we find a more open conception of ontological identity, we come to recognize not only the dangers endemic to certain strands of traditional philosophical thinking, but also the resources this tradition itself brings to bear on the attempt to think ontological identity after Auschwitz. (shrink)

This introduction consists of two parts. In the first part, the special issue editors introduce inductive metaphysics from a historical as well as from a systematic point of view and discuss what distinguishes it from other modern approaches to metaphysics. In the second part, they give a brief summary of the individual articles in this special issue.

The paper proposes a novel understanding of how Aristotle’s theoretical works complement each other in such a way as to form a genuine system, and this with the immediate (and ostensibly central) aim of addressing a longstanding question regarding Aristotle’s ‘first philosophy’—namely, is Aristotle’s first philosophy a contribution to theology, or to the science of being in general? Aristotle himself seems to suggest that it is in some ways both, but how this can be is a very difficult question. My (...) answer is in some respects a version of one that goes back at least to the middle ages—i.e., that first philosophy is concerned with the gods (and to that extent offers a theology) because the gods are causes and principles of beings precisely insofar as they are beings. The more original aspect of my position lies in my claim that the sort of tension found in the Metaphysics is likewise to be found in many of Aristotle’s physical works. Thus, for example, the De caelo is (I argue) concerned generally with natural beings (= beings susceptible of change), but its discussions are focused largely on the heavenly bodies and the Aristotelian elements insofar as they admit of change with respect to place. Here I claim that the particular objects of discussion are dealt with precisely because they are causes and principles of natural beings as such. Something similar goes, I claim, for the De generatione et corruptione, the general concern of which is a particular species of natural being—i.e., natural beings susceptible of generation and corruption. In this way, I argue, Aristotle successively deals in his theoretical works with those causes and principles of (say) a horse which attach to it insofar as it is a being, those causes and principles of a horse which attach to it insofar as it is a natural being, those causes and principles of a horse which attach to it insofar as it is a perishable natural being, and so on for the lower genera under which the species horse is subsumed. (shrink)

This paper explores the Aristotelian context of the real distinction between existence and essence thought to be posited in Thomas Aquinas’ early workDe Ente Et Essentia. In doing so, the paper situates its own position in the context of contemporary scholarship and in relation to the contemporary trend to downplay Aristotle’s influence in Thomas Aquinas’ philosophy. The paper argues that re-readingDe Ente Et Essentiain this way sheds new light on some of the crucial debates in contemporary Thomist scholarship, particularly with (...) respect to the analogous relation between potency and act: essence and existence, the distinction between conceptual and causal explanation, and the relationship between philosophy and theology in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. (shrink)