The author tries to expose the reception of Aristotelian philosophy among the first Greek Churchfathers, from St. Justin to the 'Refutatio'. There are some interesting points concerning the doxographical tradition, specially relating to the Aristotelian idea of God.

Accounts of ontic explanation have often been devised so as to provide an understanding of mechanism and of causation. Ontic accounts differ quite radically in their ontologies, and one of the latest additions to this tradition proposed by Peter Machamer, Lindley Darden and Carl Craver reintroduces the concept of activity. In this paper I ask whether this influential and activity-based account of mechanisms is viable as an ontic account. I focus on polygenic scenarios—scenarios in which the causal truths depend on (...) more than one cause. The importance of polygenic causation was noticed early on by Mill (1893). It has since been shown to be a problem for both causal-law approaches to causation (Cartwright 1983) and accounts of causation cast in terms of capacities (Dupré 1993; Glennan 1997, pp. 605-626). However, whereas mechanistic accounts seem to be attractive precisely because they promise to handle complicated causal scenarios, polygenic causation needs to be examined more thoroughly in the emerging literature on activity-based mechanisms. The activity-based account proposed in Machamer et al. (2000, pp. 1-25) is problematic as an ontic account, I will argue. It seems necessary to ask, of any ontic account, how well it performs in causal situations where—at the explanandum level of mechanism—no activity occurs. In addition, it should be asked how well the activity-based account performs in situations where there are too few activities around to match the polygenic causal origin of the explanandum. The first situation presents an explanandum-problem and the second situation presents an explanans-problem—I will argue—both of which threaten activity-based frameworks. (shrink)

I argue that Aristotle's approach to the proper type of acquisition, use-value, want, and accumulation/storage of wealth is oriented less to excluding commercial activity, such as that of Aristotle's Athens, than to forestalling misordered concupiscence – the taking of an inherendy limited good for the unlimited, or highest, good. That is, his moral aversion to taking a means for an end lies behind his rendering of the sort of wealth that is natural. By stressing the limited nature of natural wealth, (...) Aristode distinguishes such wealth qua limited from an artificial unlimited desire for profit in order to drive home his point that wealth ought not be taken as an objective good (i. e., good in itself). (shrink)

Cet article examine les opinions des néoplatoniciens tardifs sur le phénomène social de la philotimia (« amours des honneurs » ; « ambition »). Sur la base du Commentaire de l’Alcibiade de Proclus, on montre que la philotimia est une émotion qui résulte d’une compréhension imparfaite de la vraie nature de l’honneur et du pouvoir. La mauvaise philotimia pousse les ambitieux à poursuivre une carrière politique en quête de pouvoir mondain et de prestige au prix de l’étude de la philosophie. (...) La bonne philotimia, au contraire, peut les pousser à rechercher ce qui est véritablement bien et donc les mettre sur la voie de la philosophie. L’histoire fournit maints exemples de bonne et de mauvaise philotimia. Damascius, dans sa Vie d’Isidore, mobilise des théories de la bonne et de la mauvaise philotimia pour éloigner ses lecteurs de l’arène politique et les conduire vers la poursuite de la philosophie. (shrink)

La perception du temps et la mémoire sont présentés dans leur spécificité et dans leur rapport réciproque. Après avoir rejeté deux interprétations, celle selon laquelle la perception du temps est différente chez l’homme et chez les autres animaux, et celle selon laquelle le temps est perçu par la sensation commune, est proposée l’hypothèse de lecture suivante : la perception du temps présuppose des sujets sentants et doués d’imagination. Cela permet de reconstituer, dans un cadre unitaire, la différence et en même (...) temps la coopération entre les facultés de la partie sensitive de l’âme et de montrer que la mémoire, qui présuppose la perception du temps, conserve de façon stable les images. En ce sens elle ordonne les données provenant de la sensation via l’imagination selon une disposition chronologique, disposition sans laquelle ces données seraient illisibles, voire inutiles et inutilisables. (shrink)

This paper sets out to evaluate the claim that Aristotle’s Assertoric Syllogistic is a relevance logic or shows significant similarities with it. I prepare the grounds for a meaningful comparison by extracting the notion of relevance employed in the most influential work on modern relevance logic, Anderson and Belnap’s Entailment. This notion is characterized by two conditions imposed on the concept of validity: first, that some meaning content is shared between the premises and the conclusion, and second, that the premises (...) of a proof are actually used to derive the conclusion. Turning to Aristotle’s Prior Analytics, I argue that there is evidence that Aristotle’s Assertoric Syllogistic satisfies both conditions. Moreover, Aristotle at one point explicitly addresses the potential harmfulness of syllogisms with unused premises. Here, I argue that Aristotle’s analysis allows for a rejection of such syllogisms on formal grounds established in the foregoing parts of the Prior Analytics. In a final section I consider the view that Aristotle distinguished between validity on the one hand and syllogistic validity on the other. Following this line of reasoning, Aristotle’s logic might not be a relevance logic, since relevance is part of syllogistic validity and not, as modern relevance logic demands, of general validity. I argue that the reasons to reject this view are more compelling than the reasons to accept it and that we can, cautiously, uphold the result that Aristotle’s logic is a relevance logic. (shrink)

There is a current debate about the grammar of intention: do I intend to φ, or that I φ? The equivalent question in Aristotle relates especially to choice. I argue that, in the context of practical reasoning, choice, as also wish, has as its object an act. I then explore the role that this plays within his account of the relation of thought to action. In particular, I discuss the relation of deliberation to the practical syllogism, and the thesis that (...) the conclusion of the second is an action. (shrink)

We may try to explain proofs as chains of valid inference, but the concept of validity needed in such an explanation cannot be the traditional one. For an inference to be legitimate in a proof it must have sufficient epistemic power, so that the proof really justifies its final conclusion. However, the epistemic concepts used to account for this power are in their turn usually explained in terms of the concept of proof. To get out of this circle we may (...) consider an idea within intuitionism about what it is to justify the assertion of a proposition. It depends on Heyting’s view of the meaning of a proposition, but does not presuppose the concept of inference or of proof as chains of inferences. I discuss this idea and what is required in order to use it for an adequate notion of valid inference. (shrink)

In Metaphysics Z 8 Aristotle offers an infinite regress argument to deny that forms come to be. Briefly put, the argument states that, if we assume that every time an x composed of matter (m1) and form (f1) comes to be, f1 also comes to be, then there would be infinitely many xs coming to be – for f1 would itself be a compound, if it comes to be, and the same reasoning would in turn apply to it. This argument (...) has great significance in the history of philosophy, for some later thinkers take Aristotle to allow or make room for the creation ex nihilo of forms. However, the only direct Greek engagement with this argument in its proper context is provided by Asclepius of Tralles’ commentary on Book Z. A close study of Asclepius’ interpretation shows that he endorsed the argument on the tacit condition that it refers to the forms αὐτὰ καθ’ αὑτά as different from both Platonic Ideas and enmattered forms. At the same time, however, its elaboration includes alongside forms αὐτὰ καθ’ αὑτά also eternal separate forms and generated forms. His reconstruction also displays a sophisticated toning-down of the potential disagreements between Plato and Aristotle on the conception of pre-existing form which is assumed in the argument. Asclepius’ interpretation offers yet further proof of the commentators’ camouflaged and stratified way of tackling philosophical issues of paramount importance. (shrink)

In public communication contexts, such as when a company announces the proposal for an important organizational change, argumentation typically involves multiple audiences, rather than a single and homogenous group, let alone an individual interlocutor. In such cases, an exhaustive and precise characterization of the audience structure is crucial both for the arguer, who needs to design an effective argumentative strategy, and for the external analyst, who aims at reconstructing such a strategic discourse. While the peculiar relevance of multiple audience is (...) often emphasized in the argumentation literature and in rhetorical studies, proposals for modelling multi-audience argumentative situations remain scarce and unsystematic. To address this gap, we propose an analytical framework which integrates three conceptual constructs: Rigotti and Rocci’s notion of communicative activity type, understood as the implementation of an interaction scheme into a piece of institutional reality, named interaction field; the stakeholder concept, originally developed in strategic management and public relations studies to refer to any actor who affects and/or is affected by the organizational actions and who, accordingly, carries an interest in them; the concept of participant role as it emerges from Goffman’s theory of conversation analysis and related linguistic and media studies. From this integration, we derive the notion of text stakeholder for referring to any organizational actor whose interest becomes an argumentative issue which the organizational text must account for in order to effectively achieve its communicative aim. The text stakeholder notion enables a more comprehensive reconstruction and characterization of multiple audience by eliciting the relevant participants staged in a text and identifying, for each of them, the interactional role they have, the peculiar interest they bear and the related argumentative issue they create. Considering as an illustrative case the defense document issued by a corporation against a hostile takeover attempt made by another corporation, we show how this framework can support the analysis of strategic maneuvering by better defining the audience demand and, so, better explaining how real arguers design and adapt their topical and presentational choices. (shrink)

Dans le livre Λ de la Métaphysique, en accord avec sa thèse fondamentale de la primauté ontologique de l’individu sur l’universel, Aristote refuse d’attribuer le statut de substances immatérielles et de principes premiers de la réalité aux Formes platoniciennes et aux Nombres de la tradition académicienne. Il croit que ces principes platoniciens – selon lui des universels privés de vie – doivent être remplacés par une série d’êtres vivants, d’individus doués d’intelligence, en activité contin...

Both Aristotle and Ernst Mayr present theories of dual explanation in biology, with proximal, clearly physical explanations and more distal, biology-specific explanations. Aristotle’s presentation of final cause explanations in Posterior Analytics relates final causes to the necessary material, formal, and efficient causes that mediate them. Johnson and Leunissen demonstrate the problematic nature of historical and recent interpretations and open the door for a new interpretation consistent with modern evolutionary theory. Mayr’s differentiation of proximate and ultimate/evolutionary causes provides a key to (...) appropriating Aristotle for modern use, if care is taken to differentiate Mayr’s proximate/distal and mechanical/evolutionary distinctions from his intentional/non-intentional distinction. Building on Mayr, and noting his appropriation of ancient and recent commentary, a strong case can be made for nested explanation, wherein evolutionary explanations are instantiated in systems of mechanical explanations. Biological concepts of organism, gene, function, etc., are etiologically prior to mechanical explanations of function, but temporally posterior to mechanical explanations of historical adaptation. Such an analysis sheds light on recent arguments within evolutionary biology while highlighting the importance of epistemology in contemporary science. (shrink)

Les interprétations et traductions habituelles de l’affirmation d’Aristote en Métaphysique Λ, 1075b12-13 πάντες δ᾽ οἱ τἀναντία λέγοντες οὐ χρῶνται τοῖς ἐναντίοις, ἐὰν μὴ ῥυθμίσῃ τις se fondent sur une compréhension contestable de la signification du verbe ῥυθμίζω. Une brève analyse de la signification et de l’usage du verbe au ve et ive siècle av. J.-C., ainsi qu’une étude des principaux interprètes anciens et médiévaux (le Ps.-Alexandre, Thomas d’Aquin, Averroès, Thémistius), dévoilent les difficultés que la compréhension de ce passage d’Aristote suscitaient (...) dès l’Antiquité et permettent de supposer que ῥυθμίζω doit ici être entendu dans son sens technique, métaphysique (« former », « ajouter une forme »), selon un usage que l’on trouve aussi chez Démocrite et Antiphon. La compréhension correcte de ce verbe autorise alors à présenter une nouvelle interprétation de ce bref passage d’Aristote et d’y découvrir une critique plus complète et précise des thèses qu’il entend dénoncer. (shrink)

I will argue for the similarity between some aspects of Aristotle’s doctrine of causes and a particular kind of interventionist theory of causality. The interventionist account hypothesizes that there is a connection between causation and human intervention: the idea of a causal relation between two events is generated by the reflection of human beings on their own operating. This view is remindful of the Aristotelian concept of αἴτιον, which is linked to the figure of the αἴτιος, the person who is (...) responsible of an action. Aristotle conceives of the efficient cause as the active element which, in the φύσις, gives rise to movement and imposes the form, in analogy with the active element that in τέχνη operates the production: the craftsman. This analogy suggests that Aristotle conceives of the causation on the basis of the human ability to modify the environment with aims. Within the debate on the manipulative theory the classical accounts worked out by Collingwood, Gasking and von Wright have been recently criticized by Woodward. von Wright’s reductive account explains causation on the basis of human free action, while Woodward regards this reduction as a dangerous move which makes causal explanations too much anthropomorphic. I will show that Aristotle’s doctrine of causes is more similar to von Wright’s account and that the Aristotelian analysis of becoming supports von Wright’s reductive interventionism against Woodward’s criticism. Furthermore, I will draw a comparison between interventionism and dispositionalism, where the latter is another contemporary account of causation that claims Aristotelian roots. (shrink)

L’opération qui définit une puissance est, pour Platon comme pour Aristote, son acte ou sa fin. Platon soutient qu’une puissance ne possède qu’une seule opération propre (conception monovalente de la puissance). Si Aristote souscrit à cette thèse, en y ajoutant quelques précisions destinées à permettre de bien définir les puissances, il semble compliquer la question en introduisant la notion de puissance des contraires qu’il élabore au chapitre 2 du livre Θ de la Métaphysique. Cependant la puissance des contraires ne doit (...) être définie elle-même qu’en fonction de ce qui est son objet en soi, et non par accident ; en outre, on se demandera s’il est certain que la notion de puissance « accompagnée de raison », qui est au fondement de la puissance des contraires, permette vraiment à Aristote de dépasser la conception monovalente de la puissance : le logos montre-t-il bien à lui seul sa privation? (shrink)

The issue of the justification of the laws of logic has been under discussion since the end of the nineteenth century. However, in many works devoted to this problem Ajdukiewicz’s achievements are left unmentioned. It can be shown that in certain periods of the development of his views, he tried to present various attempts at solving the problem of the justification of the laws of logic.

Dans le traité De l’âme, II, 8, 450 b 5-9, Aristote pose que la voix (phônê) possède apotasis, melos et dialektos. L’analyse des significations possibles de ces trois termes dans le vocabulaire musical conduit à soutenir qu’il y a progression de l’un à l’autre et qu’ils forment système. Apotasis désigne la tessiture ou registre, melos la séquence mélodique et articulée et dialektos la manière propre d’articuler, l’accent ou prononciation, ce qu’en éthologie on appelle le “ dialecte ”. La dialektos des (...) oiseaux chanteurs permet de confirmer cette analyse. (shrink)

We critically reconsider an old hypothesis of the role of the dekad in Pythagorean philosophy. Unlike Zhmud, we claim that: 1) the dekad did play a role in Philolaus’ astronomical system, and 2) Aristotle did not project Plato’s theory of the ten eidetic numbers onto the Pythagoreans. We claim that the dekad, as the τέλειος ἀριθμός, should be understood in Philolaus’ philosophy as completeness and the basis of counting in Greek – as in most other languages – in a decimal (...) system. Additionally, we argue that the number ten is not even a candidate for the τέλειος ἀριθμός in Plato’s philosophy. As a final result of our discussion, we compare and contrast Philolaus’, Plato’s, and Speusippus’ accounts of completeness in relation to numbers. (shrink)

In his own De anima, Alexander of Aphrodisias famously identifies the “active” (poietikon) intellect with the prime mover in Metaphysics Λ. However, Alexander’s claim raises an issue: why would this divine intellect come in the middle of a study of soul in general and of human intellection in particular? As Paul Moraux asks in his pioneering work on Alexander’s conception of the intellect, is the active intellect a “useless addition”? In this paper, I try to answer this question by challenging (...) a solution according to which the active intellect would intervene directly with the material intellect to trigger its ordinary working. I argue that the active intellect acts as a final cause, both for human intellect and for its ordinary objects of thought. The active intellect is twice “cause of the intellection”, i.e. cause of the actualization of human thought: once (i) when it offers thought occasions for thinking through objects, and again (ii) when it actualizes mediately the human intellect itself in its development. This reading agrees with Alexander’s usual position about the prime mover’s causality. It accounts for the multiplicity of expressions with which Alexander describes the causality of the active intellect in his De anima. It also explains why the development of human intellect has been described without direct reference to active intellect, since substances do not aim directly at the First cause, but their aiming at it is mediated by their desire for their own good. (shrink)

Desperately difficult texts inevitably elicit desperate hermeneutical measures. Aristotle's De Anima, book three, chapter five, is evidently one such text. At least since the time of Alexander of Aphrodisias, scholars have felt compelled to draw some remarkable conclusions regarding Aristotle's brief remarks in this passage regarding intellect. One such claim is that in chapter five, Aristotle introduces a second intellect, the so-called 'agent intellect', an intellect distinct from the 'passive intellect', the supposed focus of discussion up until this passage.1 This (...) view is a direct descendent of the view of Alexander himself, who identified the agent intellect with the divine intellect.2 Even the staunchest defender of such a view is typically at a loss to give a plausible explanation of why the divine intellect pops into and then out of the picture in the intense and closely argued discussion of the human intellect that goes from chapter four through to the end of chapter seven.3 Revolting against an extravagant postulation of entities, Michael Wedin, for example, has argued with considerable subtlety and ingenuity that there is in fact only one intellect discussed in De Anima.4 This unified intellect is fully capable of being integrated into Aristotle's hylomorphic psychology. In order to make his case, though, Wedin is himself forced (1) to discount the importance of some texts and (2) to interpret others in a way that strains credulity. (shrink)

Cet article essaie de montrer, contre l’interprétation donnée par Morrison, que la théorie aristotélicienne de la différence est assez cohérente et unitaire. Puisque cette théorie englobe celle des modes d’être (catégories) et celle de la prédication, la première partie de l’article montre le relations qui existent entre ces deux doctrines, en analysant surtout le difficile chapitre I, 9 des Topiques. La deuxième partie essaie de résoudre les apparentes contradictions qu’on trouve dans l’exposé de la différence aux premiers traités de l’Organon.

Un certain nombre de sources arabes font état d'une polémique entre Alexandre et Galien. Une tendance marquée de la recherche a été de lire nos sources grecques, relativement peu nombreuses, à la lumière de cette tradition. L'objectif de cet article est de contester le bien-fondé d'une telle orientation, et de dégager en même temps le statut spécifique de ce genre de récit biographique.

Portuguese translation of Aristotle’s _Prophecy in Sleep_, preceded by a short presentation of the text and accompanied by explanatory notes.

I examine the reasons Aristotle presents in Physics VIII 8 for denying a crucial assumption of Zeno’s dichotomy paradox: that every motion is composed of sub-motions. Aristotle claims that a unified motion is divisible into motions only in potentiality (δυνάμει). If it were actually divided at some point, the mobile would need to have arrived at and then have departed from this point, and that would require some interval of rest. Commentators have generally found Aristotle’s reasoning unconvincing. Against David Bostock (...) and Richard Sorabji, inter alia, I argue that Aristotle offers a plausible and internally consistent response to Zeno. I defend Aristotle’s reasoning by using his discussion of what to say about the mobile at boundary instants, transitions between change and rest. There Aristotle articulates what I call the Changes are Open, Rests are Closed Rule: what is true of something at a boundary instant is what is true of it over the time of its rest. By contrast, predications true of something over its period of change are not true of the thing at either of the boundary instants of that change. I argue that this rule issues from Aristotle’s general understanding of change, as laid out in Phys. III. It also fits well with Phys. VI, where Aristotle maintains that there is a first boundary instant included in the time of rest, but not a “first in which the mobile began to change.” I then show how this rule underlies Aristotle’s argument that a continuous motion cannot be composed of actual sub-motions. Aristotle distinguishes potential middles, points passed through en route to a terminus, from actual middles. The Changes are Open, Rests are Closed Rule only applies to actual middles, because only they are boundaries of change that the mobile must arrive at and then depart from. On my reading, Aristotle argues that the instant of arrival, the first instant at which the mobile has come to be at the actual middle, cannot belong to the time of the subsequent motion. If it did, the mobile would already be moving towards the next terminus and thus, per Phys. VI 6, would have already left. But it cannot have moved away from the midpoint at the very same moment it has arrived there. This means that the instant of arrival must be separated from the time of departure by an interval of rest. I show how Aristotle’s reasoning applies generally to rule out any continuous reflexive motion or continuous complex rectilinear motion. On my interpretation, however, the argument does not apply to every change of direction. When, as in the case of projectile motion, multiple movers and their relative powers explain why the mobile changes directions, distinct sub-motions are not involved. Aristotle holds that such motions cannot be continuous, not because they involve intervals of rest, but because they involve multiple causes of motion. My interpretation of the Changes are Open, Rests are Closed Rule allows us to make better sense of Aristotle’s argument than any previous interpretation. (shrink)

This paper argues against the view favored by many contemporary scholars that corrective justice in the Nicomachean Ethics is essentially compensatory and in favor of a bifunctional account according to which corrective justice aims at equalizing inequalities of both goods and evils resulting from various interactions between persons. Not only does the account defended in this paper better explain the broad array of examples Aristotle provides than does the standard interpretation, it also better fits Aristotle’s general definition of what is (...) just. In the last section, the paper argues, again against the standard interpretation, that proportional reciprocity, the kind of justice discussed in Nicomachean Ethics V.5, has two forms and is closely linked to corrective justice. Although corrective justice and proportional reciprocity are conceptually distinct and do different work in Aristotle’s political philosophy, instances of proportional reciprocity are instantiated by instances of corrective justice. This linkage, the paper concludes, helps to explain why Aristotle would assign corrective justice such a prominent place in his theory of justice. (shrink)

Il est relativement peu de textes qui, dans le De Cœlo, témoignent de l’existence de réalités incorporelles transcendantes à l’ordre astral. La conclusion, sur laquelle se referme la démonstration de l’unicité du ciel en I 9, est-elle de ceux‑là? Les « êtres de là-bas » y désignent-ils les réalités sidérales les plus hautes ou certaines instances hypercosmiques? C’est à l’identification de ces êtres qu’il s’agit ici de procéder. En montrant que convergent ensemble les indices textuels du passage et son homogénéité (...) démonstrative, il pourra alors apparaître que ces êtres, dont Aristote vante l’immutabilité et la perfection, transcendent l’ordre céleste, sans qu’on puisse toutefois déterminer la relation exacte qui les unit au ciel, obérant ainsi la possibilité de lire, à travers eux, une référence implicite à la doctrine du Premier Moteur Immobile. (shrink)