El presente artículo es una propuesta de una nueva lectura del capítulo quinto del libro tercero del De anima de Aristóteles. Por lectura se entiende no una interpretación, sino una cuidadosa atención al momento filológico: qué dice literalmente el texto, antes de las interpretaciones filosóficas. Para esto, se atiende minuciosamente a la semántica de los términos, al modo de adjetivación de la lengua griega, y al contexto general, gramatical y semántico de este capítulo quinto. El resultado de este análisis filológico (...) es una es una nueva comprensión del texto, que permite una nueva traducción, que se ofrece al final. (shrink)

In Book IV of the Metaphysics Aristotle argues that first philosophy investigates not only being qua being but also the axioms or principles of demonstration. In the same place he establishes which principles are first. The first among these is the principle of contradiction. The thesis I defend in my communication is that the principle of contradiction in Aristotle is not merely formal in the style of modern symbolic logic, but is the constituent law of all discourse. As such, the (...) most precise sense in which it is a 'first principle' is that of a condition of the possibility of significance: terms and judgments have significance if they comply with the condition; if they violate it they signify nothing and are vacuous. If my interpretation is correct, various consequences will be derivable from a first principle, of which the most important is its link with essence and substance. (shrink)