It is now a commonplace that Aristotle and Theophrastus systematically misunderstood Heraclitus in interpreting fire as an ἀρχή of the kind posited by the Milesians. While air in the thought of Anaxamines and the ἄπειρον in the thought of Anaximander can be considered to play the role of the Aristotelian material substrate without too much distortion, this is not so for fire in the thought of Heraclitus. As Cherniss has indicated, while a substrate of the kind posited by the (...) Milesians is a permanent being underlying change, Heraclitean fire is change itself. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that both defence and criticism of the claim that humans act ‘under the guise of the good’ neglects the metaphysical roots of the theory. I begin with an overview of the theory and its modern commentators, with critics noting the apparent possibility of acting against the good, and supporters claiming that such actions are instances of error. These debates reduce the ‘guise of the good’ to a claim about intention and moral action, and in so (...) doing have become divorced from the theory's roots in classical and medieval philosophy. Aristotle and Aquinas’ ‘guise of the good’ is primarily a metaphysical claim resting on the equivalence between actuality and goodness, from which conclusions about moral action are derived. I show the reasoning behind their theory and how it forms the basis for the claims about intention and action at the centre of the modern debate. Finally, I argue that the absence of its original foundation is apparent in recent attacks on the ‘guise of the good’. It is unsurprising that modern action theory and ethics have not always been able to comfortably accommodate the ‘guise of the good’; they are only telling half of the story. (shrink)

Aristotle defined the ethical and intellectual virtues which are recognized as fundamental even today. Contemporary virtue ethics still takes into account Aristotelian virtues. The modern moral philosophers have tried to find new ethical values in a society in which religions are in decline and the old values lost their meaning. The starting point of their research has been Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics” which has remained the most important work in ethics influencing the philosophical thinking until nowadays. This paper seeks to (...) explain the actual importance of the cardinal Aristotelian virtues and how they are seen today. (shrink)

This article first presents the aristotelian criticism of the conception of God as Esse ipsum subsistens in Thomas Aquinas, through one of the most important aristotelian philosophers today, Enrico Berti. Then the answer offered by the thomist Stephen L. Brock in his defense of the ipsum esse is set forth, with reference to the recent disputes regarding this issue in the so-called «analytical thomism». The aim is to determine the status of the recent debate between aristotelians and thomists (...) regarding the question of God as Esse ipsum subsistens, in order to ascertain whether the historical incompatibility between the two metaphysical conceptions is to be considered definitive. (shrink)

It is widely known that Aristotle rules out the existence of actual infinities but allows for potential infinities. However, precisely why Aristotle should deny the existence of actual infinities remains somewhat obscure and has received relatively little attention in the secondary literature. In this paper I investigate the motivations of Aristotle’s finitism and offer a careful examination of some of the arguments considered by Aristotle both in favour of and against the existence of actual infinities. I argue that Aristotle has (...) good reason to resist the traditional arguments offered in favour of the existence of the infinite and that, while there is a lacuna in his own ‘logical’ arguments against actual infinities, his arguments against the existence of infinite magnitude and number are valid and more well grounded than commonly supposed. (shrink)

Bowin begins with an apparent paradox about Aristotelian infinity: Aristotle clearly says that infinity exists only potentially and not actually. However, Aristotle appears to say two different things about the nature of that potential existence. On the one hand, he seems to say that the potentiality is like that of a process that might occur but isn't right now. Aristotle uses the Olympics as an example: they might be occurring, but they aren't just now. On the other hand, Aristotle (...) says that infinity "exists in actuality as a process that is now occurring" (234). Bowin makes clear that Aristotle doesn't explicitly solve this problem, so we are left to work out the best reading we can. His proposed solution is that "infinity must be...a per se accident...of number and magnitude" (250). (Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2008.07.47). (shrink)

In his magnum opus, The Healing, Avicenna took four Aristotelian arguments and used them to prove a very un-Aristotelian conclusion: that the cosmos is both created and eternal. This book explains how Avicenna used his distinctive understanding of possibility and necessity to do so.

“There is no longer any world,” wrote the late philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy in 1993, and in this paper, the sense of this loss of world is analysed in terms of the modal notions of necessity, impossibility, and possibility. Modal differentiation can illuminate what constitutes the sense of actuality in a world, and hence, what it is that has been lost regarding this actuality of being in a world. Modal thinking does not rely on knowledge of the true state (...) of affairs, nor on having a constant grasp on necessity: modal thinking enables us to discern the actual by way of the relations between necessity, possibility, and impossibility. It is on the basis of these relations that a mode of rethinking actuality is suggested. In order to pursue this line of thought, I rely on Jacques Lacan’s understanding of modalities as writing operations, concentrating mostly on certain sections from his Seminar XXI, wherein he refers to Aristotelian modal logic and mentions the analytic philosopher Jaakko Hintikka. This ternary relation between Aristotle, Hintikka, and Lacan suggests a different outlook on the actual being-such of a world. The being-such of a world, its actuality, is understood as a contingency, a possibility emerging from the relation between what is declared necessary and what is impossible. The paper shows the implications of such a modal understanding of actuality, as demonstrated in Lacan’s view of human sexuality and sexual difference. (shrink)

At the center of contemporary neo-Aristotelian naturalism is the thought that we can account for a great deal of ethics by thinking about what is needful in human life generally. When we think about practices like promising, virtues like justice or courage, and institutions that serve to produce, maintain, and help to reproduce well-ordered social life we can make some headway we consider the sense in which our topic makes some forms of human good possible and even, in some (...) cases, actualizes the very good made possible thereby. G.E.M. Anscombe introduced this kind of thinking about ethics, which Philippa Foot named ‘Aristotelian Necessity'. In this essay, I take a hard Look at Anscombe’s work on the topic, and then consider her later insistence that crucial aspects of ethics could not be understood in these terms. (shrink)

In the paper author advocates rejecting a prominent criticism of Marx, which holds that his condemnation of capitalism fails because it is based on incoherent, inconsistent moral reasoning. To rebut this criticism he investigates Marx’s conception of ideological illusion, arguing that some moral judgments could be true even if people always possess moral beliefs because of ideological illusion. To support this thesis he provides epistemological argument about the nature of epistemic justification, proving that on any reasonable interpretation of knowledge, justification (...) of moral beliefs is possible under even the extreme conditions of ideological illusion. He then introduces the final theme of the essay, namely that strikingly Aristotelian themes lie at the heart of Marx’s ethical condemnation of capitalism. By discussing the similarity of Marx’s account of alienation to Aristotle’s account of self-actualization he shows that both thinkers explicitly connect their accounts of development and actualization of human potential and freedom within a society with a sharp critique of economic forms that block or retard that development and actualization. Key words ARISTOTLE, MARXISM, CAPITALISM. (shrink)

Two central accounts of human cognition emerge over the course of the Middle Ages: the theory of divine illumination and an Aristotelian theory centered on abstraction from sense data. Typically, these two accounts are seen as competing views of the origins of human knowledge; theories of divine illumination focus on God’s direct intervention in our epistemic lives, whereas Aristotelian theories generally claim that our knowledge derives primarily (or even entirely) from sense perception. In this paper, I address an (...) early attempt to reconcile these two accounts—namely, Robert Grosseteste’s commentary on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics—and I argue that Grosseteste’s efforts to bring Aristotle’s account of human cognition into harmony with a theory of divine illumination proves both philosophically interesting and largely successful. Grosseteste’s claim that God does not directly illumine our intellects in this life opens his theory to the worry that Grosseteste leaves the divine out of his theory of divine illumination in the CPA. Steven Marrone, for example, holds that Grosseteste’s Aristotelian focus in this work causes him to abandon the theory of divine illumination he advocated in the earlier De veritate in favor of a modified theory of “human” illumination. I argue in contrast that Grosseteste does give God a role in human knowledge in the CPA—a role that allows human beings to remain largely responsible for the acquisition of knowledge while still requiring God’s illumination for actual cognition. In short, I conclude that, although human bodies interfere with God’s direct illumination of our intellects, God nevertheless plays a crucial ideogenic role in human cognition by illuminating the objects of our intellection and making them intelligible to us. (shrink)

In this paper we offer a critical account of Aristotelian theory of time. After a brief presentation of the main views of Aristotle on the infinite, we focus the attention to the status of points with respect to the potentiality-actuality distinction. Then we address Aristotle’s views on time on the basis of the Aristotelian notion of continuity. We construe the “nows” as potentialities awaiting to be actualized. We show that it is the intervention of an agent, who, (...) through finitely many unitary mental acts of noticing or perceiving, guarantees the actualization of particular “nows”, constructs or brings into existence time intervals and through their comparison measures them, so producing what Aristotle calls time. (shrink)

This book challenges several widespread views concerning Aristotle's methods and practices of scientific and philosophical research. Taking central topics in psychology, zoology, astronomy and politics, Professor Lloyd explores generally unrecognised tensions between Aristotle's deeply held a priori convictions and his remarkable empirical honesty in the face of complexities in the data or perceived difficult or exceptional cases. The picture that emerges of Aristotle's actual engagement in scientific research and of his own reflections on that research is substantially more complex than (...) is usually allowed. (shrink)

In this essay I investigate the interplay between actual and potential properties of a thing within an Aristotelian conceptual framework. A minimal formal treatment of such interplay is proposed, outlining the actual or possible causal impact of these properties with respect to the changes of a thing in question. I also mention the historically interesting controversy between Aristotle and the Megarians concerning the relationship between power and act, as well as Hintikka’s application of the Principle of Plenitude. The essay (...) ends with certain suggestions for treating the problems of actual and potential properties by means of dispositions and contrary-to-fact conditionals. (shrink)

Actual Ethics offers a moral defense of the 'classical liberal' political tradition and applies it to several of today's vexing moral and political issues. James Otteson argues that a Kantian conception of personhood and an Aristotelian conception of judgment are compatible and even complementary. He shows why they are morally attractive, and perhaps most controversially, when combined, they imply a limited, classical liberal political state. Otteson then addresses several contemporary problems - wealth and poverty, public education, animal welfare, and (...) affirmative action - and shows how each can be plausibly addressed within the Kantian, Aristotelian and classical liberal framework. Written in clear, engaging, and jargon-free prose, Actual Ethics will give students and general audiences an overview of a powerful and rich moral and political tradition that they might not otherwise consider. (shrink)

Edward Feser defends the ‘Aristotelian proof’ for the existence of God, which reasons that the only adequate explanation of the existence of change is in terms of an unchangeable, purely actual being. His argument, however, relies on the falsity of the Existential Inertia Thesis, according to which concrete objects tend to persist in existence without requiring an existential sustaining cause. In this article, I first characterize the dialectical context of Feser’s Aristotelian proof, paying special attention to EIT and (...) its rival thesis—the Existential Expiration Thesis. Next, I provide a more precise characterization of EIT, after which I outline two metaphysical accounts of existential inertia. I then develop new lines of reasoning in favor of EIT that appeal to the theoretical virtues of explanatory power and simplicity. Finally, I address the predominant criticisms of EIT in the literature. (shrink)

The precise position to be assigned to the Categories in the Aristotelian system has always been somewhat of a puzzle. On the one hand, they seem to be worked into the warp of its texture, as in the classification of change, and Aristotle can argue from the premiss that they constitute an exhaustive division of the kinds of Being . On the other hand, both in the completed scheme of his logic and in his constructive metaphysic they retire into (...) the background, giving place to other notions, such as causation, change, actuality and potentiality. Investigation has, moreover, been hampered, especially in Germany, by attempts to correlate them with the Kantian Categories, with which they have obvious points of contact. But Kant's formal a priori concepts by which the mind makes for itself a world, to use Mr. Bosanquet's phrase, imply an attitude to knowledge and reality so utterly opposed to the Aristotelian that the comparison has tended to confusion rather than elucidation. Scholars now realize better that the Aristotelian Categories can only be understood in connexion with the problems of Aristotle's own age. (shrink)

Aristotelian Actualism is the conjunction of the theses that absolutely everything is actual, that individuals are neither reducible to nor dependent on independently identified properties, and that some individuals are genuine contingent existents. Robert Adams and Gregory Fitch, two prominent proponents of Aristotelian Actualism, have argued that this view has a consequence that any modal logic stronger than M, and so any modal logic in which symmetry and reflexivity are frame conditions, is inadequate. We argue that this is (...) incorrect. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Two Interrelated Problems Lewis's Solution Inductive Paradox Identity versus Counterpart Theory Platonism: The Main Realist Alternative to Lewis An Aristotelian Alternative Leibniz's Account A Combined Account.

The paper begins with an exposition of Aristotle’s own philosophy of mathematics. It is claimed that this is based on two postulates. The first is the embodiment postulate, which states that mathematical objects exist not in a separate world, but embodied in the material world. The second is that infinity is always potential and never actual. It is argued that Aristotle’s philosophy gave an adequate account of ancient Greek mathematics; but that his second postulate does not apply to modern mathematics, (...) which assumes the existence of the actual infinite. However, it is claimed that the embodiment postulate does still hold in contemporary mathematics, and this is argued in detail by considering the natural numbers and the sets of ZFC. (shrink)

This essay argues that Confucian ritual propriety (li 禮) and Aristotelian habit (hexis, ἔξις) play analogous roles within their respective ethical systems and that we can come to appreciate important dimensions of each category by juxtaposing it with the other. Despite numerous and deep dissimilarities, both li and hexis work to organize and publicize emotions and dispositions, ground true moral quality in phenomenally-present activity, and (leveraging insights from Marcel Mauss) contribute to shaping and actualizing an agent’s body and behavior. (...) The essay unpacks several semantic subtleties of li and hexis, and attempts to respond to alleged disanalogies. Finally, the success of a such a li-hexis analogy reveals the ways in which Aristotle’s virtues are more socially contingent and Confucian morality is less particularistic than is often allowed; which in turn, I argue, lessens some of the distance between virtue-based and role-based ethical frameworks. (shrink)

Many personalists have argued that an adequate account of the human person must include an account of subjectivity as irreducible to anything objectively definable. The personalists contend that Aristotle lacks such an account and claim that he fails to meet three criteria that a theory of the human person must fulfill in order to have an account of subjectivity as irreducible. I show first that some later Aristotelians fulfill these criteria, and then that Aristotle himself also does so. He describes (...) four characteristics of human subjectivity that are considered crucial by many personalists. I do this through an interpretation of Aristotle’s accounts of substantial actualities, nous, friendship, and beauty. (shrink)

What explains change? Edward Feser argues in his ‘Aristotelian proof’ that the only adequate answer to these questions is ultimately in terms of an unchangeable, purely actual being. In this paper, I target the cogency of Feser’s reasoning to such an answer. In particular, I present novel paths of criticism—both undercutting and rebutting—against one of Feser’s central premises. I then argue that Feser’s inference that the unactualized actualizer lacks any potentialities contains a number of non-sequiturs.

In the Aristotelian tradition, there are two broad answers to the basic question "What is soul?" On the one hand, the soul can be described by what it does. From this perspective, the soul seems to be composed of various different parts or powers (potentiae) that are the principles of its various actions. On the other hand, the soul seems to be something different, namely, the actual formal principle making embodied living substances to be the kinds of things that (...) they are. Contemporary Aristotelians are split on how to interpret Aristotle: Anna Marmodoro (2013, 18), Thomas Johansen (2012, 81), and most others argue that the soul is nothing but a kind of cluster or group of powers. Rebekah Johnston (2011), however, strongly disagrees and argues that the soul is only the actual principle of embodied substance. Aquinas provides a novel and neglected solution to this problem and would argue that both sides are partly right but that either side is insufficient without the other. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aristotelian Explorations by G. E. R. LloydRosamond Kent SpragueG. E. R. Lloyd. Aristotelian Explorations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. ix + 242. Cloth, $49.95.Although the essays in this richly rewarding book were given as lectures and seminars in a variety of places over a period of eight years, they possess a unity of theme that welds them into a satisfying whole. Furthermore, by the judicious (...) use of postscripts and additional notes, the author keeps us abreast of current discussion. [End Page 126]Lloyd’s chief concern is to compare Aristotle’s theory (notably as expressed in the Posterior Analytics) with his practice (especially in the zoology). The topic may be, as he admits in his 1990 Boston Colloquium lecture, “The Theories and Practices of Demonstration,” a “hoary old chestnut,” but his response to it is not; as is evident from the very title of his paper, he adopts a pluralistic approach to Aristotle’s methodology. Lloyd’s minute and extensive knowledge of the texts, as when he studies passages in the Topics in which what is there called apodeixis does not meet the conditions laid down in Posterior Analytics, makes his view compelling. Again, a careful study of Parts of Animals I, 1 issues in the caveat that “we had better be careful when talking about demonstration in the physical treatises, to examine what mode or manner of demonstration is in question” (33); it could be the method of deduction of antecedents, for instance, where we start with what will be rather than what is. In general, it needs to be considered not just whether a particular theory of demonstration is applied, but whether it is applicable.In a chapter entitled “The Relationship of Psychology to Zoology,” Lloyd discusses Aristotle’s theory of matter, particularly “the problem of reconciling what is true of earth, water, air, and fire haplōs... and what is true of them as the constituent elements of living uniform parts” (64). This difficulty has its repercussions for his form/matter distinction: the difference between the two is best illustrated by artefacts (as, I might add, is evident to those who attempt to teach it), but the unity of the sonolon by the cases in which the soul is form and the matter a living body of which the soul is the actuality.In this connection Lloyd makes reference to Aristotle’s “top-down theory of life” as being one quite definitely held by him (64, 99). I think that this is only partially the case. A passage such as De Anima 415a25ff. in which not only animals but plants are said, through reproduction, to aim at the eternal and divine, suggests that a “bottom-up” theory of life is equally important in his psychology, especially in view of his pervasive desire to stress the final cause. I think that Lloyd’s own principle of plurality in relation to context could well be applied here. The overall structure of the De Anima illustrates Aristotle’s use of both methods: bottom-up from nutrition through sensation to thought, but top-down from sight to touch. It is, of course, true that the De Anima is not concerned to address the question of how life emerges from not-life, but its discussion of living things quite definitely begins at the bottom of the scala naturae, with plants. Again, at History of Animals 588b4ff. (a passage crucial to Lloyd’s consideration of borderline cases in his chapter entitled “Fuzzy Natures?”), we find that Nature proceeds from the inanimate to the animate, and that first after the inanimate come plants. It also strikes me as being of interest that, when Aristotle discusses the difficult topic of growth in Generation and Corruption 321b16ff., he does so at the level of flesh and not of hands, from the bottom up, that is.Of other topics on which Lloyd has things to say, that of spontaneous generation is of particular interest. Here he points out that spontaneously generated creatures are of regular kinds; they have determinate material causes. As to whether Aristotle’s recognition of such cases has driven him “into admitting a principle that offers a glaring... (shrink)

when it is actually heating water; an object is perceptible only when it is actually being 1 perceived-- and so on. But, it is part of the notion of a causal power that it exists whether or not it is active. In order to respond to this challenge Aristotle draws a distinction between two ways of being a power; when it is active the power exists actually; when it is inactive it exists potentially. Contemporary writers have noted that we need (...) a way of understanding powers that includes their present but inactive existence, although Aristotle’s ontological response to this difficulty might seem wrong-headed or unnecessary. One objectionable aspect to his solution is the inherently teleological relationship between being x potentially and being x actually. Second, Aristotle does not draw an ontological distinction between those powers that operate with reason, and those that do not. He does provide different conditions of realization for the two kinds of powers, but those conditions are variants within the same ontology of causal powers. In this regard, Aristotle offers one possible realist framework of causal powers that sees human action on a continuum with the physical sciences rather than as categorically different from them, and therefore requiring an entirely different explanatory framework. It is important to note, however, that Aristotle’s paradigmatic physical science is biology and his framework for understanding natural living beings is teleological. Perhaps a better way to put this is that Aristotle’s understanding of the physical sciences is entirely different from ours, and it is a good question how relevant Aristotle’s unified framework of causal powers is given current conceptions of the physical sciences, and the centrality of physics and chemistry as models of the physical sciences. The common theme that unites both of these aspects of Aristotle’s ontology of causal powers is the central presence of teleology. (shrink)

In a seminal article, Simo Knuuttila and Anja Inkeri Lehtinen drew attention to a “curious doctrine” holding that contradictories can be true at the same temporal instant, and identified the major defenders of the doctrine as John Baconthorpe, Landolfo Caracciolo, and Hugh of Novocastro. Normann Kretzmann later asserted as fact the suggestion by Knuuttila and Inkeri Lehtinen that the doctrine comes from a misreading of a passage from Aristotle’s Physics. In fact, a study of the relevant texts reveals that Hugh (...) of Novocastro first elaborated the doctrine by building on the Scotist doctrines of synchronic contingency and simultaneous causation. As these doctrines require at the same instant of time an order of priority and posteriority between possibility and actuality, cause and effect, so, Hugh says, there must be prior and posterior different states of affairs. Landolfo Caracciolo made this doctrine notorious outside the Franciscan convent by using it in his principia debates, directly engaging the circle of Cardinal Iacopo Stefaneschi. John Baconthorpe, the first to cite the Physics passage, did not have any noticeable effect on the development of the doctrine. (shrink)

In this essay Suzanne Rice examines Aristotle's ideas about virtue, character, and education as elements in an Aristotelian conception of good listening. Rice begins by surveying of several different contexts in which listening typically occurs, using this information to introduce the argument that what should count as “good listening” must be determined in relation to the situation in which listening actually occurs. On this view, Rice concludes, there are no “essential” listening virtues, but rather ways of listening that may (...) be regarded as virtuous in the context of particular concrete circumstances. (shrink)

It is well known that Leibniz advocated the actual infinite, but that he did not admit infinite collections or infinite numbers. But his assimilation of this account to the scholastic notion of the syncategorematic infinite has given rise to controversy. A common interpretation is that in mathematics Leibniz’s syncategorematic infinite is identical with the Aristotelian potential infinite, so that it applies only to ideal entities, and is therefore distinct from the actual infinite that applies to the actual world. Against (...) this, I argue in this paper that Leibniz’s actual infinite, understood syncategorematically, applies to any entities that are actually infinite in multitude, whether numbers, actual parts of matter, or monads. It signifies that there are more of them than can be assigned a number, but that there is no infinite number or collection of them, which notion involves a contradiction. Similarly, to say that a magnitude is actually infinitely small in the syncategorematic sense is to say that no matter how small a magnitude one takes, there is a smaller, but there are no actual infinitesimals. In geometry one may calculate with expressions apparently denoting such entities, on the understanding that they are fictions, standing for variable magnitudes that can be made arbitrarily small, so as to produce demonstrations that there is no error in the resulting expressions. (shrink)

The paper deals with Aristotle’s concept of corruption. First, it reconstructs Aristotle’s debate with the pre-Socratics and then it focuses on the candidates for entity that can perish: form, matter, and substance. The text argues against the widely accepted thesis according to which substance is a corruptio simpliciter without further ado. The paper intensely relies upon ancient and medieval commentators of Aristotle. Finally, special attention is devoted to the dimension of time and the problem of actuality.

Aristotelian telos is the action's projected goal - what the agent aims at in action - and also, if the action is successful, its accomplished goal. Grasping the projected telos involves grasping how the circumstances of the action, and the telos itself, appear to the agent. Phantasia, appearance, thus captures the internal side of action. The object of aiming, and of desire, appears to the agent as something good, hence for Aristotle valuation is built into the very nature of (...) action. I explore the philosophical implications of this theory of action. I next examine the use Aristotle makes of telos and phantasia in his ethics. I argue that he adopts a dialectical approach there, which starts with appearances of goodness, in order to incorporate insights of Protagorean relativism, while nonetheless affirming the objectivity of ethical judgement. I conclude by looking into the role that dispositions and actualizations play in Aristotle's telos_centered approach to action. (shrink)

Hominization theory speculates on the process and chronology of a human embryo’s ensoulment. Aristotle, a key ancient Greek thinker, presented his own hominization theory based on his hylemorphic metaphysics and pioneering researches in embryology. Thomas Aquinas, a medieval philosopher and theologian, built his Christian and Catholic hominization theory on the foundations laid down by Aristotle. The contemporary Roman Catholic Church, with its own prolife, anti-abortion and anticontraception agenda, modified the Aristotelian and Thomistic hominization theories by allegedly benchmarking on recent (...) developments in human embryology. This paper uses the archeological and genealogical methods, as developed by the French poststructuralist and postmodernist philosopher Michel Foucault, in reexamining these three hominization theories as discourses, in comparing and contrasting their epistemic contexts, and in peering into their respective genealogies. Contrary to common assumptions, these three hominization theories have very few elements in common and are actually divergent. The underpinning intention of this paper is to demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of the contemporary Roman Catholic Church’s hominization theory. (shrink)

It is argued that acceptance of determinism sits badly with the way we use counterfactual conditionals when considering gains and losses in light of how things would have been if such-and-such had or had not happened; it is further suggested that one type of indeterminism runs into the same difficulty; also that the difficulty may escape notice through failure to distinguish different uses of counterfactuals.

To translate the Aristotelian square of opposition into Chinese requires restructuring the Aristotelian system of genus-species into the Chinese way of classification and understanding of the focus-field relationship. The feature of the former is on a tree model, while that of the later is on the focusfield model. Difficulties arise when one tries to show contraries betweenA- type and E-type propositions in the Aristotelian square of opposition in Chinese, because there is no clear distinction between universal and (...) particular in a focus-field structure of thinking. If there could be a chance to discuss the analytic identity between the two logical systems, then it might be only constituted during a face to face conversation in the present, or, in other words, in the translation of particular propositions (singular subjective,I-type, andO-type propositions) in a particular case. The best hope for a translator is that in the actual temporally situated practice,now he or she might find a temporary way to map the concepts of one to the other with relatively little loss of structure. (shrink)

This article provides a critical analysis of the situationist challenge against Aristotelian moral psychology. It first outlines the details and results from 4 paradigmatic studies in psychology that situationists have heavily drawn upon in their critique of the Aristotelian conception of virtuous characteristics, including studies conducted by Hartshorne and May (1928), Darley and Batson (1973), Isen and Levin (1972), and Milgram (1963). It then presents 10 problems with the way situationists have used these studies to challenge Aristotelian (...) moral psychology. After challenging the situationists on these grounds, the article then proceeds to challenge the situationist presentation of the Aristotelian conception, showing that situationists have provided an oversimplified caricature of it that goes against the grain of much Aristotelian text. In evaluating the situationist challenge against the actual results from empirical research as well as primary Aristotelian text, it will be shown that the situationist debate has advanced both an extreme, untenable view about the nature of characteristics and situations, as well as an inaccurate presentation of the Aristotelian view. (shrink)

Albert the Great was one of the earliest Western scholars to apply the methodology of Aristotle's Posterior Analytics to diverse fields of natural philosophy. Some medievalists, however, question Albert's commitment to Aristotelianism, interpreting his paraphrastic commentaries as an exposition of views he did not hold himself. Further, some modern Aristotle scholars argue that the methodology of the Posterior Analytics has little to do with Aristotle's actual practice in his scientific treatises. Albert, however, argued that this methodology is essential for achieving (...) a true scientia of nature and that Aristotle employed this methodology in his zoological books. In his commentary on the first book of the Parts of Animals , Albert shows how the method of demonstration applies to the study of animals. He elaborates an account of demonstration ex suppositione finis as the sort of reasoning proper to a science of contingent things. He also argues that scientific explanation must be a two-part procedure. Preceding the final step of causal demonstration the data to be explained must be organized in such a way that the causally significant connections between them are discovered. This is achieved through a restricted application of Platonic division. Albert makes a careful study of the conditions for non-accidental division and shows how they result in quia demonstrations which in turn yield propter quid demonstrations of the cause. ;This two-step methodology is evident, Albert argues, in the arrangement of Aristotle's zoological treatises. The books of the Historia animalium are placed first because they contain the preliminary organization of animal differentiae through division. These are followed by books on the parts, generation and motion of animals which make use of the material so organized to demonstrate their causes. Thus, Albert agrees with recent scholars who argue that the Historia animalium is not a treatise on systematics, but a pre-causal study of animal morphology. ;Albert's careful interpretation of Aristotle's zoology in light of the methodological requirements of the Posterior Analytics taken together with his own research on animal differentiae demonstrates his commitment to Aristotelian principles of natural philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper I criticize political realism in International Relations for not being realistic enough, for being unrealistically pessimistic and ultimately incoherent. For them the international arena will always be a place where a battle of wills, informed by the logic of power, is fought. I grant that it may be true that the international political domain is a place where such battles are fought, but this alleged infelicitous situation does not in and of itself entail the normative pessimism informing (...) their assessments of the international domain, and it does not entail the recommendations offered by political realists, particularly relating to balance of power concerns. Their lack of realism stems from total or partial blindness to the proper and coherent ideals that ought to be informing their analyses of the international domain. Such blindness does not allow them properly to grasp what actually is the case. As we can only properly understand what an eye is by knowing the ideal that defines eyes — proper vision — so too we can only properly identify the movements of the international political arena in relation to ideals that ultimately define this arena, ideals that stem from a proper understanding of the human person. Following an Aristotelian teleological technique of analysis, I show that ideals are a constitutive part of the international domain and I recommend an alternative to political realism, namely, realistic idealism (or, if you prefer, idealistic realism). (shrink)

In this paper I criticize political realism in International Relations for not being realistic enough, for being unrealistically pessimistic and ultimately incoherent. For them the international arena will always be a place where a battle of wills, informed by the logic of power, is fought. I grant that it may be true that the international political domain is a place where such battles are fought, but this alleged infelicitous situation does not in and of itself entail the normative pessimism informing (...) their assessments of the international domain, and it does not entail the recommendations offered by political realists, particularly relating to balance of power concerns. Their lack of realism stems from total or partial blindness to the proper and coherent ideals that ought to be informing their analyses of the international domain. Such blindness does not allow them properly to grasp what actually is the case. As we can only properly understand what an eye is by knowing the ideal that defines eyes — proper vision — so too we can only properly identify the movements of the international political arena in relation to ideals that ultimately define this arena, ideals that stem from a proper understanding of the human person. Following an Aristotelian teleological technique of analysis, I show that ideals are a constitutive part of the international domain and I recommend an alternative to political realism, namely, realistic idealism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Coloration of Aristotelian Eye-Jelly: A Note on On Dreams 459b–460aRaphael WoolfThe purpose of this paper is to make a small contribution to a recent lively debate concerning Aristotle’s philosophy of mind. This debate has centered on a paper published by Myles Burnyeat,1 which argued that Aristotle’s philosophy of mind, being hopelessly anachronistic, could not serve as the prototype of any contemporary theory: in particular, it could not (...) be seen as proto-functionalist, as Nussbaum and Putnam had proposed.2 The grounds given by Burnyeat for the anachronism of Aristotle’s philosophy of mind focus mainly on Aristotle’s notion of perceptual awareness. According to Burnyeat, perceptual awareness is for Aristotle a primitives3 and essential4 property of the relevant organ of perception. In Burnyeat’s view, Aristotle’s theory denies that there is any further level of analysis that can be undertaken. When an eye comes to perceive an object, the potentiality of the eye for seeing is actualized, but there is nothing further to be said. In particular, there is no physiological change taking place in the eye, in which the psychological change is realized. Thus, when Aristotle says in the De Anima that the eye becomes “in a way coloured”5 when it sees a coloured object, for Burnyeat this means no more [End Page 385] than that it registers awareness of colour,6 not that it becomes literally coloured itself.On this last point, Burnyeat takes issue with the view of Richard Sorabji,7 who maintains that for Aristotle the eye does undergo physiological change when it does some seeing: in particular, if it sees, for example, a red object, then the jelly inside the eye literally becomes coloured red. On this view, Aristotle does indeed have a theory, congenial enough to modern perspectives, whereby each psychological change is realized physiologically.8There are several large questions which my paper does not attempt to address. Firstly, it offers no view on what implications Burnyeat’s position would have, if correct, for the interpretation of Aristotle as a proto-functionalist. Secondly, it does not offer a view on how necessary the correctness of an interpretation such as Sorabji’s is to the case made by the advocates of Aristotle as a proto-functionalist.9 Thirdly, it makes no adjudication between any of the competing parties’ interpretations of Aristotle’s De Anima, his main work on psychology and the chief textual battleground in the debate I have been outlining.This paper’s aim is a much more modest one. It is to draw attention to a short passage in Aristotle’s work On Dreams, which in my view incontrovertibly suggests that Aristotle did believe that the eye becomes literally coloured during perception of a coloured object. I shall therefore be presenting one piece of evidence in favour of Sorabji’s view; but I shall not be arguing that Sorabji’s view is conclusively the right one (which would require consideration of all the relevant evidence), nor drawing any conclusions about the implications of this evidence for interpretations of Aristotle’s philosophy of mind. It is, however, [End Page 386] reasonable to suggest that if Sorabji’s view is right then Burnyeat’s view is in severe difficulties, since its main underpinning—the claim that psychological change has no physiological counterpart in Aristotle’s theory—will have been removed. The evidence I have to present, then, is, albeit indirectly, support for the view that Aristotle’s philosophy of mind is not hopelessly anachronistic, at least in the way that Burnyeat claims.Here is the evidence from On Dreams (459b23–460a26):That the sense-organs rapidly perceive even slight differences is shown by what happens with mirrors. Indeed, anyone who would give his attention to it might look into that subject too and explore the problem. At the same time, it is clear from this case that, just as the organ of sight is affected by, so too it acts upon, its object. For in extremely clean mirrors, when women look into them during their menstrual period, the mirror surface takes on a sort of blood-red cloud. In fact, if the... (shrink)

This is a translation of Nicolai Hartmann’s article “Der Megarische und der Aristotelische Möglichkeitsbegriff: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des ontologischen Modalitätsproblems,” first published in 1937. In this article, Hartmann defends an interpretation of the Megarian conception of possibility, which found its clearest form in Diodorus Cronus’ expression of it and according to which “only what is actual is possible” or “something is possible only if it is actual.” Hartmann defends this interpretation against the then dominant Aristotelian conception of possibility, (...) based on the opposition between dynamis and energeia, and according to which there is always an open multiplicity of simultaneous “possibilities,” the outcome of which remains undetermined. Since, according to Hartmann, reality suffers no indetermination, the Megarian conception of possibility is an account of real possibility, whereas the Aristotelian one is merely an account of epistemic possibility. (shrink)

This paper advances an account of truth that has as its starting point Aristotle’s comments about truth at Metaphysics 1011b1. It argues that there are two key ideas in the Aristotelian account: that truth belongs to ‘sayings that’; and that truth involves both what is said and what is. Beginning with the second of these apparent truisms, the paper argues for the crucial role of the distinction between ‘what is said’ and ‘what is’ in the understanding of truth, on (...) the grounds that it is essential to the distinction between truth and falsity and, indeed, to the very possibility of any critical assessment of statements. However, this distinction cannot be used to ground any account of truth in terms that refer to anything other than truth—there is thus no relation that underlies truth even though truth may be construed (in a certain limited sense) relationally. Returning to the first point, it is argued that while truth should indeed be understood as belonging to statements, it should not be construed as attaching to ‘propositions’, but to uttered sentences. The account of truth advanced is minimalist, and yet not deflationist; objectivist, and yet not independent of actual linguistic practice. (shrink)