This new translation of _On Coming to Be and Passing Away _and_ Meteorology 1 and 4_ fits seamlessly with the other volumes in the New Hackett Aristotle Series, enabling Anglophone readers to study these works in a way previously not possible. The Introduction describes the book that lies ahead, explaining what it is about, what it is trying to do, how it goes about doing it, and what sort of audience it presupposes. Sequentially numbered, cross-referenced endnotes provide the information (...) most needed at each juncture, while a detailed Index indicates the places where focused discussion of key notions occurs. (shrink)

A survey of what Arabic scholars have written on the subjects treated in Aristotle's Meteorology . It is investigated how they were influenced by one another and by previous Greek commentators. Also, two Arabic treatises are edited and translated.

Aristotle's Meteorology is - after the theoretical works Physics and De Generatione et Corruptione - the first practical application on the evidence of the elements and their properties. The texts of the Arabic and Latin versions, the last of which is printed here for the first time, are presented together with an Introduction and Index.

Many authors do not consider Book 4 of the Meteorology authentic. The main reasons to doubt its Aristotelian origin are the absence of primary matter in the explanation of the formation of the elements and, secondly, the theory of pores. It is difficult to believe that Aristotle would have replaced his classic doctrine of matter and form of the Physics by a theory which makes such contraries as hot and cold, dry and moist the principles, or even the matter, (...) out of which things come to be. Likewise the refutal of the theory of pores in the Physics and the On Generation and Corruption makes one wonder whether in Meteorology 4 he could have returned to something close to atomism, as Lewis thinks he did. These difficulties explain why the Aristotelian authorship of the treatise is questionable, although some defend it. Professor Lewis belongs to this group. He accepts Furley’s arguments in favor of its authenticity and has a more positive view of its contents than H. D. P. Lee in his introduction to the Loeb Edition of the text. Meteorology 4 is an attempt to discuss a wide range of cosmic phenomena. It contains a further development of the theory of primary matter and the four elements. The commentary by Alexander does not help us much to solve the above mentioned difficulties. Lewis’s translation is good, though. In 179.18 of the text, Lewis translates en hypostasei einai by “they are actually existent,” but it seems better to read “they are in a subject”. (shrink)

Richard Janko's acclaimed translation of Aristotle's _Poetics_ is accompanied by the most comprehensive commentary available in English that does not presume knowledge of the original Greek. Two other unique features are Janko's translations with notes of both the _Tractatus Coislinianus_, which is argued to be a summary of the lost second book of the Poetics, and fragments of Aristotle’s dialogue On Poets, including recently discovered texts about catharsis, which appear in English for the first time.

This volume offers a critical edition of Samuel Ibn Tibbon's Hebrew version of the Arabic paraphrase of Aristotle's Meteorology , together with an English translation and an introduction which discussed Ibn Tibbon's comments incorporated in his translation.

(2001). Corpuscular alchemy and the tradition of Aristotle's Meteorology, with special reference to Daniel Sennert. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science: Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 145-153. doi: 10.1080/02698590120059013.

Meteorology IV.12, the final chapter of Aristotle’s “chemical” treatise, is a major text for the traditional view that Aristotle believed in universal teleology, the idea that everything in the cosmos—including the elements, earth, water, air, and fire—is what it is because of the goal or good it serves. But in the context of the rest of Meteorology IV, a different picture emerges. Meteorology IV.1–11 analyze the dispositional properties of material compounds (malleability, elasticity, etc.), examine the behavior of (...) stuffs when heated and cooled, and provide the resources to classify kinds in terms of their material composition and dispositional properties. Meteorology IV.12 places itself within that larger investigation but takes a different approach, examining those same materials from the perspective of their functions in bodies of greater complexity (e.g., the function of flesh in an organism). I argue that the teleological account of, say, the elements is limited to their function in the composition of complex kinds, such as living organisms, and that outside such a complex the elements behave as they do, not for the sake of some good they serve but “of necessity,” according to their material natures and interactions with other materials. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Otot ha-Shamayim: Samuel Ibn Tibbon’s Hebrew Version of Aristotle’s “Meteorology.” by AristotleSteven HarveyAristotle. Otot ha-Shamayim: Samuel Ibn Tibbon’s Hebrew Version of Aristotle’s “Meteorology.” Translated and edited by Resianne Fontaine. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995. Pp. lxxx + 268. Cloth, $108.50.This modest, seemingly unimportant, volume is in fact a surprisingly fascinating text that should be of interest to all historians of philosophy. Under the rather boring guise of (...) an edition and English translation of a medieval Hebrew translation of an early ninth-century Arabic translation of Aristotle’s Meteorology, this book is destined to be ignored by most historians of philosophy and even by those who have a special interest in Aristotle. This is a shame, and it is the goal of this brief review to alert the reader to the book’s value.The Hebrew translation of the Meteorology is, to be more precise, a creative translation of an inadequate Arabic version of the text, corrected, interpreted, and expanded on the basis of the commentaries of Alexander of Aphrodisias and Averroes, by a philosopher struggling to understand what was for him a seminal text of Aristotle’s. The philosopher-translator was Samuel Ibn Tibbon, best known for his faithful translation into Hebrew of Maimonides’s Guide of the Perplexed. What is immediately significant about the translation of the Meteorology, which was completed in 1210, is that it was the first text of Aristotle’s to be translated into Hebrew and, as far as is known, the first Hebrew translation of any philosophic or scientific work of a non-Jew. For the philosophically inclined Jew who did not know Arabic and who had struggled through Maimonides’s Guide without the benefit of translations, paraphrases, or even commentaries on Aristotle’s Physics and other prerequisite writings on natural science, the translation must have been an eagerly awaited and much welcome work. But why, of all things, the historian of philosophy will ask, the Meteorology? And however much appreciated the translation may have been in 1210, what possible use could an English translation of this patchwork Hebrew translation of a garbled and abridged Arabic translation of perhaps a Syriac translation of the Greek original or compendium of the Meteorology have for us today when we have a fine Greek edition of the text and modern translations from that edition?There were good reasons not to translate the Meteorology first. In contrast to most of Aristotle’s writings on natural science which existed in impressively reliable Arabic translations, the Meteorology existed in a poor and incomplete one. Ibn Tibbon comments in his Introduction to the translation that “errors and omissions” in the Arabic translation are evident from the context, from a comparison with Alexander’s commentary and the lemmata found therein, and from a comparison with other Aristotelian works that existed in trustworthy translations. The text could not simply be translated, [End Page 130] but needed to be reconstructed on the basis of a careful study of the commentaries of Alexander of Aphrodisias, Averroes, and the other commentaries that were available. Yet, even if the text had existed in a reliable translation, the tradition of text-study required that the sciences be studied in a proper order and this meant—as is clear from the opening words of the Meteorology—beginning the study of natural sciences with the Physics and turning to the Meteorology only after completing On the Heavens and On Generation and Corruption. Ibn Tibbon acknowledged this, and, in fact, interjected in his own name (27, 29) that “all the statements the philosopher has [made] thus far, are introductory remarks taken from earlier discussions in other books.... Someone who has not previously acquired knowledge and learning from his books that precede this one, will understand very little of this introduction.” Unfortunately for Ibn Tibbon’s reader, it would be forty years before any of those books or epitomes of them would be translated into Hebrew. Resianne Fontaine, in her wide-ranging and informative Introduction (xi–xii), brings support for A. Ravitzky’s suggestion that Ibn Tibbon’s decision to translate the Meteorology was motivated by his personal interest in the text... (shrink)

In his commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, Nicole Oresme propounds a very specific theory of the ontological status of accidents. Characteristic of Oresme’s view on accidents is that he does not consider them accidental forms, but only so-called condiciones or modi of the substance. Unlike the term “modus”, the term “condicio” seems to be very characteristic of Oresme’s own terminology. Up to now it has been unknown whether Oresme exerted any influence with his condicio-theory of accidents. This paper presents an anonymous (...) 14th-century commentary on Aristotle’s Meteorology, in two Questions of which the term “condicio” occurs in an ontological context. Moreover, the text shows further striking coincidences with known works by Oresme, and this makes an influence by Oresme appear all the more probable. (shrink)

This essay is a reading of Aristotle’s account in Meteorology I.14 of changes in local environmental conditions and its significance for Aristotle’s understanding of nature and change more generally. That account shows how local environments are complex bodies, and so change through habituation: the sedimentation of patterns of activity through repeated activity/change. In turn, this shows how the regularity of what is by nature is a matter of the relative stability of habits in the face of unceasing generation and (...) destruction. Strikingly, Aristotle then turns to the consequences of that account for human beings’ ability to comprehend changes in the environmental conditions of their activities. (shrink)

Happ presents this volume as essentially a philological study of the concept of matter in Aristotle. He is well aware of the philosophical issues and explicitly states his position on them, but the dominant concern is with a close and exhaustive analysis of relevant texts. The work is meant to be a contribution to the history of ideas, and Happ intends to continue the study in other periods of Greek thought. He does not cover all the aspects of the problem (...) of matter; he admits, for instance, that the problem of the substantiality of matter has been left aside. Philosophically, he tries to avoid the extremes of idealism and realism, and sees Aristotle's theory of knowledge as involving both subject and object; phenomena need the help of mind to become actual. He also considers Aristotle to be more similar to Plato than many authors do, and thinks there is little chronological development in the basic issues of Aristotle's thought. He admits aporetic aspects in Aristotle, but combined with an approach to philosophical problems which is both systematic and dynamic. There are eight major sections in the book: An exhaustive review of the literature and a statement of the philosophical viewpoint of the author; Matter in Plato and the Academy, and Aristotle's introduction of the term hylë. ; Matter as substrate for opposites; Metaphysics IV, VI, XI; Matter in the celestial world; Meteorology IV and the biological works; Matter and knowledge; abstraction; matter and mathematics; matter and the science of metaphysics. ; Matter as a principle of being. There as 130 pages of indices and numerous cross-references in the footnotes. Happ stresses that matter is a principle of being in Aristotle, not anything "stuffy," as it was taken by the Stoics. He claims the "idealist" side of Aristotle's doctrine on matter had little philosophical effect in later thought; but isn't the medieval notion of prime matter precisely that of a principle? And is the Plotinian notion of matter as close to Aristotle as Happ claims? One may wonder if he is reading neo-platonic spiritualized matter back into Aristotle. Some of the best pages deal with mathematics and the need for mind to actualize mathematical entities, and with analysis of matter in the heavens and in aether. Happ admits to conjecture when he says that in Metaphysics VII 3 Aristotle, through his via negativa, reaches matter as a general principle of being, beyond the physical substratum of material things. In its comprehension, depth and subtlety of analysis, this work is clearly one of the major studies on Aristotle; it is also superbly printed and bound, and exorbitantly priced.--R. S. (shrink)

In this article I defend an account of Meteorology IV as providing a material-level causal account of the emergence of uniform materials with a wide range of dispositional properties not found at the level of the four elements—the emergence of material complexity. I then demonstrate that this causal account is used in the Generation of Animals and Parts of Animals as part of the explanation of the generation of the uniform parts (tissues) and of their role in providing nonuniform (...) parts (organs) with the dispositional properties needed to fulfill their functions. (shrink)

Examining in detail Aristotle's treatment of physical, cosmological, chemical, and meteorological questions, this learned study compares his arguments and conclusions with those of his precursors in order to assess his debt to them and at the same time to show clearly the nature of his own new contributions to the body of scientific thought. It also examines the interrelations of the major topics included in Aristotle's scientific work and the relations between his theology and his science. Describing his (...) work as "a study in continuity and transformation," Friedrich Solmsen writes, "The scientific endeavors of the Presocratics have a sequel.... Aristotle did not discover the subjects with which he deals in his physical treatises. In the questions which he takes up he is neither as free nor as arbitrary as some students of his thought appear to believe, and in the answers which he provides he is not as invariably original as he himself in the course of his arguments may lead us to think." With constant reference to its historical antecedents, Aristotle's system of movement is analyzed and studied, as are his doctrines regarding time, place, matter, and the infinite. In connection with his concept of cosmic order, special consideration is given to the relation between the lower (sublunary) and the upper (celestial) Cosmos in his scheme. Solmsen's mastery of the relevant texts (not only Aristotelian, but also Platonic, Presocratic, and Epicurean) is evident on every page. (shrink)

Despite a paucity of contemporary information about Aristotle's life and affairs, our ancient sources are only too happy to supply missing details and additional colour, much of it centred on his relationship with his teacher, Plato. Aristotle left Athens at around the time of Plato's death, for Assos, on the northwest coast of present-day Turkey, where he carried on his philosophical activity, augmented by intensive marine biological research. He returned to Athens for his second and final stay in 335. (...) Once there, Aristotle established his own school in the Lyceum. This second period of residency in Athens was an astonishingly productive one for Aristotle. His works range widely across an astonishing number of fields, from aesthetic theory and argumentation theory to epistemology, ethics, logic, metaphysics, music, medicine, meteorology, pedagogy, philosophy of science, theology, and zoology. All these areas Aristotle pursued with genuine, unselfconscious zeal, under a general rubric of his own invention. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Notes and Discussions ARISTOTLE'S "DE MOTU ANIMALIUM" AND THE SEPARABILITY OF THE SCIENCES In contrast to Plato's vision of a unified science of reality and with a profound effect on subsequent natural science and philosophy, Aristotle urges in the Posterior Analytics and elsewhere that scientific knowledge is to be pursued in limited, separable domains, each with its own true and necessary first principles for the explanation of a (...) discrete range of phenomena, that is, accepted observations and beliefs, from which its investigations are launched (An. Pr. 46al7ff.; An. Post. 74b25, 76a26-3 o, 84b14-18, 88a31; Cael. 3o6a6ff.; Gen. An. 748a7ff.). In an early introduction to a course of lectures on the natural sciences, Aristotle also indicates the order in which those sciences ought to be presented (Mete. 338a2o-~9, 339a5-9; cf. Cael. 268al6, Part. An. 644b~2ff.). The plan is to start with a general discussion of change and motion, then progress to studies of specific natural phenomena, ending with the many species of plants and animals. In the theory of demonstration in Posterior Analytics 1, which is concerned with the organization, justification, and teaching of a finished science, Aristotle maintains that terms cannot ordinarily cross genera; for example, geometry cannot provide demonstrations of truths of arithmetic or aesthetics. Demonstration of a theorem of some one science by means of another can be accomplished when and only when the sciences are related as "subordinate " to "superior" (75b14-17), for example, as harmonics to arithmetic or optics to geometry. A superior science may supply the "reason" for a "fact" known to obtain in the subordinate science (78b34-79a6). Evidently at least part of what he has in mind is the relation between pure and applied sciences.' Aristotle's practice as well as a number of methodological remarks ' See ThomasAquinas,In Post. An. 50.1,15.131, 50.1.25,as wellasJ. Barnes'snoteson An. Post. 78b34,in Aristotle'sPosteriorAnalytics (Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress,1975).For relevant background see Ian Mueller,"Ascendingto Problems:Astronomyand Harmonicsin Republic VII," inJohn Anton,ed., Scienceand the Sciencesin Plato (Albany:StateUniversityof NewYork Press, 1979). [65] 66 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY suggest also that the strictures of the Posterior Analytics are not intended to prohibit the heuristic use of material from other disciplines in research (see e.g., Top. 1.14; Part An. 639b17ff., 641a6-14, 642alo-14, 645b15-2o; Ph. 192b8-34, 199a8-21, 199a33-b5). The requirements for science laid down here are very strict, and it is sometimes maintained that Aristotle violates them himself to some degree in other works, but it is not usually believed that he ever denies the separability of the sciences in general. Martha C. Nussbaum has recently presented a lively challenge to this concensus? She argues that Aristotle's late, little known work De Motu Animalium represents a radical but "deliberate and fruitful" rejection of his earlier philosophy of science as enunciated in the Organon and not seriously questioned in other, subsequent writings. Her claim is that in his mature thought about the sciences Aristotle arrives at a significantly "less departmental and more flexible picture of scientific study" (p. 113) and comes to hold that "no inquiry is genuinely separable from a whole group of interlocking studies, and no being can be extensively studied without an account of its placement in the whole of nature" (p. 164). Nussbaum's conclusion is probably not intended to be as Platonic as it may appear at first blush, for she seems actually to be speaking only of connections between sciences of different substances. There is no suggestion that the study of beauty or health or geometry, say, is on a par with the sciences of substances. Nor does she suggest that Aristotle wavers in his conviction that there are fundamental cleavages between the practical and theoretical sciences, which will make a full-blown science of ethics-politics look very different from the demonstrative science of meteorology, for example. Nevertheless, even if limited to the natural sciences of substances, her claim remains an important and interesting one. She holds, more specifically, that Aristotle departs from his earlier position as follows: (1) He recognizes that the biological study of various modes of local motion... (shrink)

A new translation and edition of Aristotle's Protrepticus (with critical comments on the fragments) -/- Welcome -/- The Protrepticus was an early work of Aristotle, written while he was still a member of Plato's Academy, but it soon became one of the most famous works in the whole history of philosophy. Unfortunately it was not directly copied in the middle ages and so did not survive in its own manuscript tradition. But substantial fragments of it have been preserved in (...) several works by Iamblichus of Chalcis, a third century A.D. neo-Pythagorean philosopher and educator. On the basis of a close study of Iamblichus' extensive use and excerption of Aristotle's Protrepticus, it is possible to reconstruct the backbone of the lost work, and then to flesh it out with the other surviving reports about the work from antiquity (for example in Alexander of Aphrodisias and other ancient commentators on Aristotle). It is also possible to identify several papyrus fragments of the work, and many references and literary allusions in later authors, especially Cicero, whose own lost dialogue Hortensius was a defense of philosophy modeleld on Aristotle's. (shrink)

In the first full-length study in any modern language dedicated to the Meteorologica, Malcolm Wilson presents a groundbreaking interpretation of Aristotle's natural philosophy. Divided into two parts, the book first addresses general philosophical and scientific issues by placing the treatise in a diachronic frame comprising Aristotle's predecessors and in a synchronic frame comprising his other physical works. It argues that Aristotle thought of meteorological phenomena as intermediary or 'dualizing' between the cosmos as a whole and the manifold world (...) of terrestrial animals. Engaging with the best current literature on Aristotle's theories of science and metaphysics, Wilson focuses on issues of aetiology, teleology and the structure and unity of science. The second half of the book illustrates Aristotle's principal concerns in a section-by-section treatment of the meteorological phenomena and provides solutions to many of the problems that have been raised since the time of the ancient commentators. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

The three articles gathered in this forum explore three complementary aspects of Aristotle’s “chemical treatise,” Meteorology IV. The emphasis is on significant ways in which his philosophy of science, metaphysics, and natural philosophy are put into practice in the context of his study of organic and inorganic uniform bodies.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 37.1 (2004) 1-20 [Access article in PDF] Endoxa, Epistemological Optimism, and Aristotle's Rhetorical Project Ekaterina V. Haskins Communication Department Boston College Aristotle's crucial role in institutionalizing the art of rhetoric in the fourth century BCE is beyond dispute, but the significance of Aristotle's rhetorical project remains a point of lively controversy among philosophers and rhetoricians alike. There are many ways of reading and (...) evaluating Aristotle's Rhetoric that depend on the philosophical, theoretical, and pedagogical purposes of the scholar.1 Most philosophical and rhetorical exegeses of the Rhetoric, however, while focusing on the text's connections to Aristotle's corpus and to the rhetorical tradition before and after Aristotle, seem to lack a critical perspective on Aristotle's relationship with his cultural context. Yet, like other parts of Aristotle's encyclopedic intellectual endeavor, much of Rhetoric 's cultural content was provided by endoxa, "reputable or received opinions."Since G. E. L. Owen's essay "Tithenai ta phainomena" (1961) many scholars have accepted the claim that endoxa, rather than empirical observations, are the source of Aristotle's own philosophical principles. The "linguistic" turn within Aristotelian studies has drawn attention to the role of "facts" of language and ordinary experience within Aristotle's philosophical method. As a result, a view of Aristotle as a hard-core empiricist has given way to a picture of a humanist who is attuned to the nuances of his cultural milieu. Still, this new portrait fails to take into account that Aristotle's manner of selecting and categorizing his linguistic resources allows him to transform what we would consider cultural beliefs into natural, and hence, atemporal premises. This pattern can be explained by Aristotle's "epistemological optimism," in itself a blend of several cultural assumptions about perception in general and vision in particular, the function of language, and the cyclical nature of human history. Part of this essay's objective, then, will be an explanation of these components of Aristotle's epistemological optimism. By appreciating Aristotle's difference [End Page 1] on these issues from our modern assumptions, we will be in a better position to understand why Aristotle relies on endoxa on all three levels of philosophical discourse (theoretical science, moral philosophy, and productive arts of poetics and rhetoric). Aristotle remains consistent in his treatment of endoxa throughout; rhetoric, however, presents a major challenge to Aristotle's epistemological optimism and his conception of language. I shall argue that Aristotle recognized this challenge and that he answered it by isolating proofs and rhetorical genres from their linguistic medium (lexis ), and postulating linguistic transparency (sapheneia ) as a stylistic norm. I. Aristotle's openness to appearances (phainomena ) and opinions (endoxa ) was accorded prominence especially thanks to the work of G. E. L. Owen and Martha Nussbaum. Owen was first to defend a linguistic translation of Aristotle's phainomena as "ordinary beliefs" and "appearances" against the then-prevalent rendition "observed facts." In so doing he asserted the crucial impact of the philosopher's cultural context on the formation of speculative discourse. Owen (1961) nonetheless demanded that phainomena be understood as empirical observations in Aristotle' treatises on biology and meteorology (84-86), so as to preserve the methodological and epistemological distinctions between inquiries into the natural world, on the one hand, and the world inhabited by human agents, on the other. Nussbaum (1986) went much further than Owen in asserting the role of phainomena and endoxa in Aristotle's inquiry. Unlike Owen, Nussbaum sees no fundamental difference between "experiences" of a philosopher and linguistic expressions of cultural beliefs and interpretations—his discursive data—from which Aristotle constructs his philosophical accounts. Nussbaum's chief (and highly influential) claim is that Aristotle's method is marked by a deep concern for the experiential world of his fellow men and their language. Aristotle's philosophical insights into the human condition, on this reading, echo and amplify classical Greek tragedy, despite the austere diction of Aristotle's extant treatises.Owing to this openness to the world of ordinary beliefs, Aristotle seems to depart from the Eleatic and Platonic distrust of human... (shrink)

Joe Sachs has followed up his brilliant translation of Aristotle's Physics with a new translation of Metaphysics. Sachs's translations bring distinguished new light onto Aristotle's works, which are foundational to history of science. Sachs translates Aristotle with an authenticity that was lost when Aristotle was translated into Latin and abstract Latin words came to stand for concepts Aristotle expressed with phrases in everyday Greek language. When the works began being translated into English, those abstract Latin words or their (...) cognates were used, thus suggesting a level of jargon and abstraction, and in some cases misleading interpretation, which was not Aristotle's language or style. These important new translations open up Aristotle's original thought to readers. (shrink)

IN GENERATION AND CORRUPTION 2.9, Aristotle sets out to give an account of “how many and what are the principles of all coming to be are like.” In doing so, he situates the cause “for the sake of which,” τὸ οὗ ἕρεκα, within a causal nexus familiar to readers of Physics 2. It is constituted by the end—that is, the form produced—by the matter in which it is produced, and by the agent that produces it. In Meteorology 4.12, moreover, (...) he explains that form itself must be understood in terms of the species-typical activities that follow upon its presence and for the sake of which the composite substance exists. He thus recognizes two sorts of ends, form and activity, of which the latter seems to be ultimate. Although form is the immediate end of coming to be, a composite substance exists in the last analysis for the sake of its activity. (shrink)

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, –that is allYe know on earth, and all ye need to know”.Hippias of Elis travels throughout the Greek world practicing and teaching the art of making beautiful speeches. On a rare visit to Athens, he meets Socrates who questions him about the nature of his art. Socrates is especially curious about how Hippias would define beauty. They agree that "beauty makes all beautiful things beautiful," but when Socrates presses him to say precisely what he means, (...) Hippias is unable to deliver such a definition. The more Socrates probes, the more absurd the responses from Hippias become. This is one of Plato's best comedies and one of his finest efforts at posing the difference between particular things and universals.Aristotle's Poetics is best known for its definition and analysis of tragedy, but it also applies to truth and beauty as they are manifested in the other arts. In our age when the natural and social sciences have dominated the quest for truth, it is helpful to consider why Aristotle claimed "poetry is more philosophical and more significant than history." In this postmodern era when the arts have been separated from ethics, it is worthwhile to consider Aristotle's way of connecting goodness and beauty. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Animals in the World: Five Essays on Aristotle’s Biology by Pierre PellegrinChristopher LutzPELLEGRIN, Pierre. Animals in the World: Five Essays on Aristotle’s Biology. Translated by Anthony Preus. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2023. vi + 324 pp. Cloth, $95.00; paper, $35.95This book explores two broad questions that have for decades been driving Pierre Pellegrin’s contributions to the so-called biological turn in Aristotle studies: whether and in (...) what sense Aristotle actually has a biology; the degree to which Aristotle’s teleological commitments lead him to characterize living things and the world that they inhabit as perfect. By analyzing various interplays that the zoological treatises posit between, on the one hand, the form and end of each species and, on the other hand, its material and efficient causes, Pellegrin reveals the astounding depth of Aristotle’s affinity with modern biology.In consideration of the millennia-spanning distance between Aristotle and the emergence of modern biology in the nineteenth century, Pellegrin first of all seeks to establish that he may call Aristotle a biologist without committing anachronism. Chapter 1 identifies two teleological notions that connect Parts of Animals and Generation of Animals to nineteenth-century conceptions of biology: Using organic function as the primary organizational principle in comparative anatomy relates Aristotle to Cuvier, and the concept of adaptation relates Aristotle to Darwin. Citing the profound influence of History of Animals on Cuvier (and thus on nineteenth-century biology), Pellegrin argues that its chief biological [End Page 357] innovation lies in the suggestion that observation is epistemically useful even when we are unable to explain that which we have observed.Chapter 2 emphasizes the role that mechanistic (that is, material and efficient) causality plays within the teleological explanations in Aristotle’s studies of animals. After a lengthy discussion of hypothetical necessity, Pellegrin uses PA 1.1’s distinction between formal nature and material nature to suggest that Aristotle recognizes an “ontological autonomy” of material nature, by which he seems to mean that matter has certain properties independent of any form. Linking Aristotle to Darwin, he argues that for Aristotle the perfection of each species consists in its fitness for (everlasting) survival. The end-directed formal nature of the species must negotiate with its autonomous material nature in order to secure for it an advantageous condition that guarantees its permanence but inevitably comes at the expense of certain disadvantages. For example, birds have no ears because they need extra matter for feathers (see PA 2.12).Shifting the focus to a crucial difference between Aristotle and modern biology, chapter 3 investigates the unity of Aristotelian natural science and biology’s place within it. Pellegrin finds analogies between Aristotle’s explanations of sexual reproduction, spontaneous generation, and Meteorology ’s account of the formation of inanimate homoiomerous matter (for example, metals, minerals). Sexual reproduction (clearly involving a material, formal, efficient, and final cause) is more causally complex than spontaneous generation (which according to Pellegrin has no preexisting final cause and only a quasi-formal cause), yet we understand spontaneous generation only by analogy with sexual reproduction, which is for Aristotle explanatorily prior. Spontaneous generation, in turn, is marginally more complex than the formation of homoiomerous matter (which also has only a quasi-formal cause and, further, no final cause at all), yet we understand the latter only by analogy with spontaneous generation and sexual reproduction. Pellegrin concludes that all natural science is united insofar as “material-efficient causality concerns all natural realities,” living and nonliving alike; however, because Aristotle in each case explains the less complex by analogy with the more complex, the teleological study of fully developed living things is explanatorily primary within his natural science. In this way, Aristotle stands in stark contrast to modern natural science, in which biology is explanatorily posterior to chemistry and physics.Chapter 4 qualifies the explanatory priority of complex organisms by challenging any notion of an Aristotelian scala naturae. Pellegrin works to show that the recognition of irreducible diversity is present in Aristotle’s very definition of an animal, arguing that in animals the nutritive faculty is neither ontologically nor developmentally prior to the sensitive and motive... (shrink)

In this paper I propose to show: 1) that in Phys. II 8 Aristotle takes Empedocles as a paradigm for a theoretical position common to all philosophers who preceded him: the view that materialism implies a mechanistic explanation of natural becoming; and 2) that, since Empe­docles is regarded as a philosopher who clearly expresses the position of all mechanistic materialists, Aristotle builds his teleological arguments precisely to refute him. Indeed, Aristotle believes that refuting the argu­ments of Empedocles – the champion (...) of mechanism – means refut­ing the mechanistic theory itself. In order to illustrate this point, I will discuss some passages from Phys. II 8, while also turning to consider the Neoplatonic commentators on Aristotle’s Physics. I will then endeav­our to explain why in 198b19 ff. Aristotle formulates the argument of rain, which has attracted so much attention from scholars of the Phys­ics: I will consider whether Aristotle believes that rain serves a purpose, contrary to what he claims with regard to meteorological phenomena in Meteorologica. (shrink)

Eudemian ethics -- Nicomachean ethics -- Magna moralia -- Virtues and vices.

Happiness, then, is the best, noblest, and most pleasant thing in the world.'In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle's guiding question is: what is the best thing for a human being? His answer is happiness, but he means, not something we feel, but rather a specially good kind of life. Happiness is made up of activities in which we use the best human capacities, both ones that contribute to our flourishing as members of a community, and ones that allow us to (...) engage in god-like contemplation. Contemporary ethical writings on the role and importance of the moral virtues such as courage and justice have drawn inspiration from this work, which also contains important discussions on responsibility for actions, on the nature of practical reasoning, and on friendship and its role in the best life. This new edition retains David Ross's justly admired translation while updating certain key terms. It also includes a valuable introduction to this seminal work, and notes designed to elucidate Aristotle's arguments. (shrink)

Edited by Richard McKeon, with an introduction by C.D.C. Reeve Preserved by Arabic mathematicians and canonized by Christian scholars, Aristotle’s works have shaped Western thought, science, and religion for nearly two thousand years. Richard McKeon’s The Basic Works of Aristotle—constituted out of the definitive Oxford translation and in print as a Random House hardcover for sixty years—has long been considered the best available one-volume Aristotle. Appearing in paperback at long last, this edition includes selections from the Organon, On the Heavens, (...) The Short Physical Treatises, Rhetoric, among others, and On the Soul, On Generation and Corruption, Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, and Poetics in their entirety. (shrink)

Terence Irwin's edition of the Nicomachean Ethics offers more aids to the reader than are found in any modern English translation. It includes an Introduction, headings to help the reader follow the argument, explanatory notes on difficult or important passages, and a full glossary explaining Aristotle's technical terms. The Third Edition offers additional revisions of the translation as well as revised and expanded versions of the notes, glossary, and Introduction. Also new is an appendix featuring translated selections from related (...) texts of Aristotle. (shrink)

This edition of Zerah yah's Hebrew translation of "De Anima," Aristotle's monograph on the soul, is of major importance for the history of transmission of Aristotle's text in the Middle Ages. Zerah yah's translation is based on the same lost Arabic translation as Averroes' long commentary, and the solution which it provides for the question of the authorship of this lost Arabic translation thus also holds good for Averroes' text.

It has long been recognized that anyone seriously interested in Aristotle's moral philosophy will need to take full account of the Eudemian Ethics, a work still gravely neglected in favor of the better-known Nicomachean Ethics. The relation between the two continues to be the subject oflively scholarly debate. This volume contains a translation of three of the eight books of the Eudemian Ethics--those that are likely to be of most interest to philosophers today--together with a philosophical commentary on these (...) books from a contemporary point of view. Intended to serve the needsof readers of Aristotle without a knowledge of Greek, this book's aim in translation has been to give as accurate an idea as possible of Aristotle's text; but for the benefit of those who are able to read the original, there are notes on the Greek text used for problematic passages. (shrink)

Aristotle was the first philosopher in the Western tradition to address politics systematically and empirically, and he remains a central figure in political theory. This essential volume presents Aristotle's complete political writings—including his Politics, Economics, and Constitution of Athens—in their most authoritative translations, taken from the complete works that is universally recognized as the standard English edition. Edited by Jonathan Barnes, one of the world’s leading scholars of ancient philosophy, and with an illuminating introduction by Melissa Lane, an authority (...) on ancient political philosophy, this compact but comprehensive volume will be invaluable for all students of politics, philosophy, classics, or Western thought. (shrink)