Essays on Aristotle's Sea-Battle, Lazy Argument, Argument Reaper, Diodorus' Master Argument -/- The book is devoted to the ancient logical theories, reconstruction of their semantic proprieties and possibilities of their interpretation by modern logical tools. The Ancient arguments are frequently misunderstood in modern interpretations since authors usually have tendency to ignore their historical proprieties and theoretical background what usually leads to a quite inappropriate picture of the argument’s original form and mission. (...) Author’s primary intention was to draw attention to the complexity of some historical arguments and to the theoretical context in which arguments were created, circulated, developed, and finally tuned. Four well-known ancient arguments – with a common central subject related to the future contingencies problem – are reconstructed from available historical sources: “The Sea Battle”, which is drawn from Aristotle’s treatise De Interpretatione; two arguments, usually ascribed to the Stoics, “The Lazy Argument” and “The Reaper”; “The Master Argument” of the Megarian philosopher Diodorus. Arguments are linguistically and semantically detaily analyzed, formally presented by reflecting some relevant corresponding hypotheses based on physical or logical theories of their ancient authors, and finally covered by appropriate logical tools familiar to a modern reader. Two appendices are added at the closing part of the book. One covering some assumptions relevant for understanding of rival streams in ancient theories of meaning related to the nature of names and naming; the other is devoted to the ancient understanding of logical proposition and attempts to find an adequate Latin translation of the Greek delicate philosophical term “ἀξίωμα”. (shrink)

Preliminaries: Terminology and Notation We may make a distinction between temporally definite and temporally indefinite sentences. ...

Almost all the chapters of this book have appeared earlier as separate articles in American and Finnish journals between 1957 and 1971, but are now reprinted together as dealing with Aristotle’s theory of modal notions and its underlying doctrines and assumptions. Recital of the chapter headings illustrates the scope of the book: "Aristotle and the Ambiguity of Ambiguity" ; "Aristotle’s Different Possibilities" ; "On the Interpretation of De Interpretatione 12-13" ; "Time, Truth and Knowledge in Aristotle and Other Greek Philosophers" (...) ; "Aristotle on the Realization of Possibilities in Time" ; "Aristotelian Infinity" ; "On Aristotle’s Modal Syllogistic" ; "The Once and Future Sea Fight: Aristotle’s Discussion of Future Contingents in De Interpretatione 9" ; and "Aristotle and the ‘Master Argument’ of Diodorus". The volume ends with "Index of Texts" cited from Aristotle and other Greek authors and "General Index". (shrink)

This dialogue between Achilles and the Tortoise – in the spirit of those of Carroll and Hofstadter – argues against the idea, identified with the “traditional” interpretation of Aristotle’s “sea battle argument”, that future contingents are an exception to the Principle of Bivalence. It presents examples of correct everyday predictions, without which one would not be able to decide and to act; however, doing this is incompatible with the belief that the content of these predictions lacks a truth-value. The (...) cost of using a non-classical logic to cope with that may be too high for Stagirite’s defenders, and they would still need to explain why our ordinary predictions seem to have a binary truth-value. In the end, the paper suggests that the problem of future contingents – and of free will – is not a logical problem at all, but rather a limit on what an agent can believe before taking a decision. (shrink)

In chapter 9 of De Interpretatione, Aristotle offers a defense of free will against the threat of fatalism. According to the traditional interpretation, Aristotle concedes the validity of the fatalist's arguments and then proceeds to reject the Principle of Bivalence in order to avoid the fatalist's conclusion. Assuming that the traditional interpretation is right on this point, it remains to be seen why Aristotle felt compelled to reject such an intuitive semantic principle rather than challenge the fatalist's inference from truth (...) to necessity. The answer, I contend, lies in Aristotle's theory of truth and truthmakers. (shrink)

Ancient commentators like Ammonius and Boethius tried to solve Aristotle's “sea battle argument” in On Interpretation 9 by saying that statements about future contingents are “indefinitely” true or false. They were followed by al-Fārābī in his commentary on On Interpretation. The article sets out two possible interpretations of what “indefinitely” means here, and shows that al-Fārābī actually has both conceptions: one applied in his interpretation of Aristotle, and another that he is forced into by the problem of divine (...) foreknowledge. It also explains the relevance of al-Fārābī's remarks as a link between the non-statistical modal theories of Philo and Avicenna. (shrink)

My dissertation deals with the Master Argument of Diodorus Cronus, a contemporary of Aristotle's. The argument was one of the most famous pieces of temporal and modal reasoning in ancient philosophy. It purports to prove that a proposition is possible if and only if it is true or will be true. The argument runs as follows: Everything that is past and true is necessary; The impossible does not follow the possible; Therefore, nothing is possible which (...) neither is nor will be true. Unfortunately, all accounts of the Master that have survived are so sketchy that we cannot determine whether the argument is valid or not. ;Several reconstructions of Diodorus' argument have been proposed. The purpose of the reconstructions is to show, using the resources of modal and tense logics, that the argument is valid. I analyze and critique most of these proposals, arguing in the final chapter for a new reconstruction which I believe to be more defensible than existing ones. ;The Master Argument is important for several reasons. It elicited much discussion among ancient philosophers and logicians both because of its reduction of modal logic to tense logic and its bearing on the free will/determinism debate. But, its influence also extends to contemporary philosophy and logic. In the 1950s and 60s, the Master inspired formal work on Diodorean systems. Much of the work on the calculus of tenses, e.g., by Prior, was undertaken in view of investigating Diodorus' argument. Finally, the literature that the argument has spawned has enriched and deepened our understanding of the connections between matters modal and temporal. (shrink)

This book is an English version of a book published in 1984 in French, the aim of which was to give a reconstruction of Diodorus Cronus's Master Argument, together with a historical analysis of some of the central modal notions on which it draws. In preparing the English text, Vuillemin has made some changes to the logic of his reconstruction of Diodorus's Argument and added an epilogue. The Master Argument consisted of three premises: Every (...) past truth is necessary, The impossible does not follow from the possible, and Something is possible which neither is nor will be true. Diodorus claimed that these premises are inconsistent, and purported to derive the negation of the third premise, which is plausibly to be identified with the principle of plenitude, from the first two premises. (shrink)

The talk deals with Aristotle’s famous sea-battle problem concerning the truth values of sentences about contingent future events: If an utterance of the sentence “There will be a sea battle tomorrow” is true, then it seems that it is determined that there will be a sea battle tomorrow. For otherwise, how could the utterance be true? If, however, an utterance of the sentence “There will be a sea battle tomorrow” is false, then it seems that it is determined that there (...) will be no sea battle tomorrow. For otherwise, how could the utterance be false? Thus, it seems that it is determined whether there will be a sea battle tomorrow or not – and so for any future event whatsoever. This, however, is in conflict with the assumption that there is such a thing as an open future, i.e., that at least for some future events, it is not determined whether they will take place or not. Some have argued, in light of this problem, that sentences about f uture events are neither true nor false. In this talk, however, it shall be argued that the sea-battle problem can be resolved in an intuitively plausible manner without giving up the principle of bivalence. (shrink)

The master argument posits a metaphysical thesis: Diodorus does away with Aristotle’s dunamis understood as a power simultaneously oriented toward being and non-being and proclaims that possibilities that fail to actualize are simply nothing. My contention is that this claim is not a mere application of Diodorus’ contribution to modal logic. Rather, Diodorus creates an ontologico-temporal concept of possibility and impossibility. Diodorus envisions the future as the past that the future will become. Since what will have been can (...) never be the accomplishment of a possibility that did not obtain, and since the future is destined to become past, any futural possibility that doesn’t actualize is neither futural nor even possible. (shrink)

Chrysippus claims that some propositions perish. including some true conditionals whose consequent is impossible and antecedent is possible, to which he appeals against Diodorus?s Master Argument. On the standard interpretation. perished propositions lack truth values. and these conditionals are true at the same time as their antecedents arc possible and consequents impossible. But perished propositions are false, and Chrysippus?s conditionals are true when their antecedent and consequent arc possible, and false when their antecedent is possible and consequent impossible. (...) The claim of the Master Argument that Chrysippus rejects, then, is stronger ihan usually supposed. (shrink)

Diodorus' Master Argument was intended to show that whatever is possible either is or will be true. The intended conclusion does not follow from the extant premisses of the Master Argument. The Near Miss argues however, from those premisses alone, that nothing can be more than momentarily an exception to the Master Argument's intended conclusion. Strong arguments support even the most contentious of those premisses . We therefore cannot easily ignore the Near Miss. Moreover, (...) there are various supplementary premisses that would turn the Near Miss into an argument with the full force of the Master Argument itself. Each of Diodorus' ancient rivals, since they accepted such doctrines as eternal recurrence, temporal atomism, and the "extended" present, would grant him at least one of these supplementary premisses. So too would any modern who holds that time is not circular, has no beginning, and does not branch. (shrink)

A revised version of the author’s Göttingen doctoral dissertation, this book is as much an independent essay in modal logic as it is an interpretation of Aristotle’s modal syllogistic. In chapter 1 the author develops what he calls a "rich framework" including speech-act operators as well as epistemic and alethic modal operators, all expressed in a notation of his own devising; for example, "Pc if ENj Pc RNc S, Rc ENj Pa Rp S" translates as "The speaker claims that if (...) he is not justified in claiming that it is not certain that S, it is certain that he is not justified in allowing that it is possible that S." A dual system of quantification is then introduced, with and without existential import for both universal and particular propositions. In chapters 2 and 3 the author uses his framework as a model for discussing various difficulties in Aristotle’s assertoric and modal logic, insisting that his results are relevant to Aristotle’s even when they do not "correspond" to them. An appendix takes up the famous sea-battle of De interpretatione 9. The author is at his best when examining particular problems in Aristotle’s logic; in this regard his criticism of the operation of conversion stands out as especially effective. He is at his worst when pursuing the "intrinsic interest" of his model above and beyond its usefulness in studying Aristotle and when making unwarranted claims of originality for his objectives. One such objective is to stress what he calls the "teleological" character of Aristotle’s logic, a character which he says "is lost sight of in modern accounts" of Aristotle’s work. He appears to be unaware of Ernst Kapp’s classic Greek Foundations of Traditional Logic, which repeatedly calls attention to just this character. The author acknowledges the existence of twentieth century modal logic only once, in a one page criticism of Prior’s defense of the distinction between de dicto and de re modalities. This occurs within a curious argument, based on a premise taken from Ammonius and Abelard, that the concept of logical necessity is "bogus."—J.D. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aristotle’s “De Interpretatione”: Contradiction and Dialectic by C. W. A. WhitakerEugene GarverC. W. A. Whitaker, Aristotle’s “De Interpretatione”: Contradiction and Dialectic. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. Pp. x + 235. Cloth, $60.00.Traditionally, the De Interpretatione is placed in the Organon between the Categories and the Prior Analytics. Where the Categories is about single terms and the Analytics about inferences, the De Interpretatione is about propositions. That traditional view is (...) presupposed by most contemporary studies of the work, which “concentrate on a small number of passages, which have been treated as isolated oases of philosophical interest in an otherwise barren work,” highlights which include “Aristotle’s semantic theory of philosophy of language” in the first chapter, the first four “linguistic chapters,” and chapter 9 on the Sea Battle (1). I suppose that the square of opposition could be added to Whitaker’s list.Whitaker, in this republication of a doctoral dissertation, wants to challenge both the traditional view and the contemporary concentration by instead studying the work as a coherent whole, whose subject, it turns out, is not propositions after all but “contradictory pairs, which are central to the working of dialectic” (2). The book then proceeds through the De Interpretatione, chapter by chapter. If he succeeds, the De Interpretatione will henceforth be read as preparation for the Topics, rather than for the Analytics. There are also three appendices examining the use of such contradictory pairs in Metaphysics IV, the Topics, and the Posterior Analytics.Thus, the first five chapters of the De Interpretatione explain the nature of assertions, name and verb, and “before that, how language is related to thought and to the real world, and how it is that utterances can make claims about things which are true or false” (8). Where names, verbs, and propositions are part of our ordinary understanding of language, contradictory pairs are not, but are a philosophical understanding of a linguistic structure that has a specifically philosophical, dialectical, purpose. The rest of the De Interpretatione, from chapter 6 on, is the examination of contradiction. Chapters 7–9 classify contradictory pairs by different criteria. Each of these chapters isolates an exception to “the rule that, in every contradictory pair, one member is true and the other false” (79). Chapter 7 looks at the first exception to the rule, “non-universal statements about universals” (91). Whitaker’s project looks good here, since he then shows the dialectical uses of such propositions, and denies their value for the deductive logic of the Analytics. Similarly, in Chapter 8 Aristotle looks at “apparently simple assertions... which are not single” (105), which also have important uses in dialectic. Finally, chapter 9 looks at the third exception to the rule, future singular assertions. One payoff of this book is to place the sea battle discussion in its Aristotelian context. [End Page 459] Whitaker says that most discussions of the sea battle assume that what is at stake is what he calls the “Principle of Bivalence” in which every assertion is either true or false. He instead insists that it is contradictory pairs, not single assertions, that are being tested by future contingents. He thus concludes: “Dialectic is a universal discipline, and its questioning can cover any subject where a question can be posed which has a right and a wrong answer. Chapters 7 to 9... demonstrate that there are limits to the universality of dialectic” (128).Whitaker follows the De Interpretatione chapter by chapter in the remainder of the book. He shows how the later chapters assist the dialectician in “sorting assertions into contradictory pairs” (181). And just as De Interpretatione begins with a consideration of the relation of language, thought, and the world, so it ends by showing the connection between contradictory propositions and opposed beliefs.Whitaker rarely strays from the De Interpretatione to show how our understanding of dialectic is improved by attention to this prerequisite. When he does, for example in a very short discussion of the relation of problems and propositions in the Topics, the results are illuminating. I would have liked more. This book should be useful to the growing numbers of scholars interested in Aristotle’s art of dialectic... (shrink)

Regarding the famous Sea Battle Argument, which Aristotle presents in De Interpretatione 9, there has never been a general agreement not only about its correctness but also, and mainly, about what the argument really is. According to the most natural reading of the chapter, the argument appeals to a temporal concept of truth and concludes that not every statement is always either true or false. However, many of Aristotle’s followers and commentators have not adopted this reading. I (...) believe that it has faced so much resistance for reasons of hermeneutic charity: denying the law of universal bivalence seems to be overly disruptive to logical orthodoxy – the kind of logical orthodoxy represented by what we now call classical propositional logic, much of which Aristotle clearly supports in many texts. I intend to show that the logical-semantic theses that the traditional reading finds in De Interpretatione 9 are much more conservative than they may seem to be at first glance. First, I will show that they complement, and do not contradict in any way, the orthodox definitions of the concepts of truth and statement that Aristotle advances in other texts. Second, by resorting in an anachronistic vein to concepts and methods peculiar to contemporary logic, I will show that a trivalent modal semantics conforming to those theses can be built for a standard formal language of the classical propositional calculus. It is remarkable that reasonable concepts of logical truth and logical consequence that may be defined on the basis of this trivalent modal semantics are coextensive with their orthodox counterparts, the concepts of tautology and tautological consequence of classical bivalent and extensional semantics. (shrink)

The hold of the fatalistic reasoning that Aristotle criticizes is dependent, first, on the idea, articulated by Frege, that the real candidates for truth and falsity are something other than particular contingent happenings such as affirmations or thinkings, and, second, on the idea that the demand for speculative reflection overrides any demand for practical deliberation. Standard challenges to the reasoning embody the same presuppositions and so simply perpetuate the core confusions. They do so most fundamentally in the assumption that we (...) need a ‘metaphysical’ grounding for our idea of ourselves as agents who have influence on the course of events. (shrink)

A position that has been called ‘classical indeterminism’ has recently been developed in order to model vagueness: this approach appeals to an object-language ‘determinately’ operator, the semantics of which are defined in such a way as to preserve the principle of bivalence. I suggest that a prominent argument against this strategy, which I call the Field–Williamson argument, fails. The classical indeterminist position in its general form was anticipated by the Aristotelian commentators in their discussions of Aristotle’s famous ‘sea (...) battle’ passage concerning future contingency. But I maintain that, ironically enough, the strategy is less happily applied in this case, where a version of the Field–Williamson argument succeeds. (shrink)

A position that has been called ‘classical indeterminism’ has recently been developed in order to model vagueness: this approach appeals to an object-language ‘determinately’ operator, the semantics of which are defined in such a way as to preserve the principle of bivalence. I suggest that a prominent argument against this strategy, which I call the Field–Williamson argument, fails. The classical indeterminist position in its general form was anticipated by the Aristotelian commentators in their discussions of Aristotle’s famous ‘sea (...) battle’ passage concerning future contingency. But I maintain that, ironically enough, the strategy is less happily applied in this case, where a version of the Field–Williamson argument succeeds. (shrink)

At least since Aristotle’s famous 'sea-battle' passages in On Interpretation 9, some substantial minority of philosophers has been attracted to the doctrine of the open future--the doctrine that future contingent statements are not true. But, prima facie, such views seem inconsistent with the following intuition: if something has happened, then (looking back) it was the case that it would happen. How can it be that, looking forwards, it isn’t true that there will be a sea battle, while also being true (...) that, looking backwards, it was the case that there would be a sea battle? This tension forms, in large part, what might be called the problem of future contingents. A dominant trend in temporal logic and semantic theorizing about future contingents seeks to validate both intuitions. Theorists in this tradition--including some interpretations of Aristotle, but paradigmatically, Thomason (1970), as well as more recent developments in Belnap, et. al (2001) and MacFarlane (2003, 2014)--have argued that the apparent tension between the intuitions is in fact merely apparent. In short, such theorists seek to maintain both of the following two theses: (i) the open future: Future contingents are not true, and (ii) retro-closure: From the fact that something is true, it follows that it was the case that it would be true. It is well-known that reflection on the problem of future contingents has in many ways been inspired by importantly parallel issues regarding divine foreknowledge and indeterminism. In this paper, we take up this perspective, and ask what accepting both the open future and retro-closure predicts about omniscience. When we theorize about a perfect knower, we are theorizing about what an ideal agent ought to believe. Our contention is that there isn’t an acceptable view of ideally rational belief given the assumptions of the open future and retro-closure, and thus this casts doubt on the conjunction of those assumptions. (shrink)

The Master Argument, recorded by Epictetus, indicates that Diodorus had deduced a contradiction from the conjoint assertion of three propositions. The Argument, which has to do with necessity and contingency and therefore with freedom, has attracted the attention of logicians above all. There have been many attempts at reconstructing it in logical terms, without excessive worry about historical plausibility and with the foregone conclusion that it was sophistic since it directly imperilled our common sense notion of (...) freedom. This text takes exception to recent tradition, translating the propositions into logical terms. The propositions figuring in The Master Argument are interpreted in terms of temporal modal logic where both the modalities and the statements they govern have chronological indices. This means that the force of the argument comes not from purely logical or modal considerations, but from our experience of time. (shrink)

In this paper we examine Prior’s reconstruction of Master Argument [4] in some modal-tense logic. This logic consists of a purely tense part and Diodorean definitions of modal alethic operators. Next we study this tense logic in the pure tense language. It is the logic K t 4 plus a new axiom ( P ): ‘ p Λ G p ⊃ P G p ’. This formula was used by Prior in his original analysis of Master (...) class='Hi'>Argument. ( P ) is usually added as an extra axiom to an axiomatization of the logic of linear time. In that case the set of moments is a total order and must be left-discrete without the least moment. However, the logic of Master Argument does not require linear time. We show what properties of the set of moments are exactly forced by ( P ) in the reconstruction of Prior. We make also some philosophical remarks on the analyzed reconstruction. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: The modal systems of the Stoic logician Chrysippus and the two Hellenistic logicians Philo and Diodorus Cronus have survived in a fragmentary state in several sources. From these it is clear that Chrysippus was acquainted with Philo’s and Diodorus’ modal notions, and also that he developed his own in contrast of Diodorus’ and in some way incorporated Philo’s. The goal of this paper is to reconstruct the three modal systems, including their modal definitions and modal theorems, and to make (...) clear the exact relations between them; moreover, to elucidate the philosophical reasons that may have led Chrysippus to modify his predessors’ modal concept in the way he did. It becomes apparent that Chrysippus skillfully combined Philo’s and Diodorus’ modal notions, with making only a minimal change to Diodorus’ concept of possibility; and that he thus obtained a modal system of modalities (logical and physical) which fit perfectly fit into Stoic philosophy. (shrink)

I explore the application of the “no-go” theorems of quantum mechanics to the problem of the openness of the future. The notion of fatalism can be made precise if we think of it as a claim that the future has a Boolean property structure. However, if this is correct, then it may be the case that by the “no-go” theorems of quantum mechanics the future must be at least partially open in the precise sense that there cannot be a fact (...) of the matter at a given time about some events at later times. (shrink)

My aim is to figure out whether Aristotle’s response to the argument for fatalism in De Interpretatione 9 is successful. By “response” here I mean not simply the reasons he offers to highlight why fatalism does not accord with how we conduct our lives, but also the solution he devises to block the argument he provides for it. Achieving my aim hence demands that I figure out what exactly is the argument for fatalism he voices, what exactly (...) is his solution, whether his solution is coherent, and whether it does indeed succeed. I find that the argument is essentially bivalence plus that the truth of a proposition stating that an event will happen in the future entails that this event will necessarily happen, that Aristotle’s solution is to restrict bivalence when it comes to propositions about contingent future events, that this solution is coherent, and that while it does not rule out the possibility of fatalism, it does succeed in blocking the argument for fatalism offered within chapter 9. (shrink)

A Master-like argument, in the usage of the present paper, is an argument that employs a reductio ad impossibile principle to transmit the necessity of what are or become past truths to the remainder of time by means of necessary conditionals of some sort. The conclusion of such an argument is some no-unactualized-possibilities principle. This paper argues that the formulation of a Master-like argument by A. N. Prior in a mixed modal temporal propositional logic (...) introduces certain artifacts into the logical analysis of the argument. One of these, a principle of temporal discreteness, is not essential to a Master-like argument. Another, a principle of forwards temporal linearity, is technically essential; but it is usually tacitly presupposed by the necessary temporal conditionals employed to 'tie together' past and future time in less formal accounts of Master-like arguments. (shrink)

In De interpretatione 9, Aristotle argues against the fatalist view that if statements about future contingent singular events (e.g. ‘There will be a sea battle tomorrow,’ ‘There will not be a sea battle tomorrow’) are already true or false, then the events to which those statements refer will necessarily occur or necessarily not occur. Scholars have generally held that, to refute this argument, Aristotle allows that future contingent statements are exempt from either the principle of bivalence, or the law (...) of excluded middle. This paper offers a new interpretation of Aristotle’s refutation of fatalism. According to this interpretation, each member of a pair of contradictory future contingent statements, in virtue of expressing modal necessity, is simply false. (shrink)

In Books VIII and IX of his masterpiece of moral philosophy, the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle gives perhaps the most famous of all philosophical discussions of friendship. Michael Pakaluk presents the first systematic study in English of these books, showing how important Aristotle's treatment of friendship is to his ethics as a whole. Pakaluk's fresh and scrupulously accurate translation is accompanied by a detailed philosophical commentary which reveals the remarkably coherent structure of the books and unfolds with lucidity the various (...) arguments contained within Aristotle's terse and compressed text. Pakaluk looks at the logical form of Aristotle's analysis of friendship, at his subtle view of the relationship between friendship and justice, at the role of reciprocity in friendship, at civic friendship and its relation to the family, and at the development of friendship out of self-love and reflexive consciousness. This volume will be a valuable tool for anyone studying Aristotle's ethics, especially readers with no Greek. (shrink)

In the field of philosophy, Plato's view of rhetoric as a potentially treacherous craft has long overshadowed Aristotle's view, which focuses on rhetoric as an independent discipline that relates in complex ways to dialectic and logic and to ethics and moral psychology. This volume, composed of essays by internationally renowned philosophers and classicists, provides the first extensive examination of Aristotle's Rhetoric and its subject matter in many years. One aim is to locate both Aristotle's treatise and its (...) subject within the more general context of his philosophical treatment of other disciplines, including moral and political theory as well as poetics. The contributors also seek to illuminate the structure of Aristotle's own conception of rhetoric as presented in his treatise. The first section of the book, which deals with the arguments of rhetoric, contains essays by M. F. Burnyeat and Jacques Brunschwig. A section treating the status of the art of rhetoric features pieces by Eckart Schütrumpf, Jürgen Sprute, M. M. McCabe, and Glenn W. Most. Essays by John M. Cooper, Stephen Halliwell, and Jean-Louis Labarrière address topics related to rhetoric, ethics, and politics. The final section, on rhetoric and literary art, comprises essays by Alexander Nehamas and André Laks. Originally published in 1994. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

In De Partibus Animalium I Aristotle sets out his philosophy of biology, discussing cause, necessity, soul, genus, and species, definition by logical division, and general methodology. In De Generatione Animalium I he applies his hylomorphic philosophy to the problem of animal reproduction. The translation is close, and includes passages from De Generatione Animalium II which complete Aristotle's theory of reproduction. The notes interpret Aristotle's arguments and discuss his views on major issues such as natural teleology. The original (...) edition was published in 1972. (shrink)

Die Suche nach historischen Quellen für die Leibniz’sche Philosophie scheint zunächst unerschöpflich. Durch alle in diesem Band versammelten Arbeiten wird der Einfluss der Philosophie des Aristoteles auf das Leibniz’sche Denken näher umrissen. Ein wesentliches Ziel ist es hierbei, einen Beitrag zur Analyse dieser philosophischen Beziehung zu leisten und zu zeigen, dass auch Aristoteles’ Philosophie nach Ansicht unserer Autoren entscheidend zum Verständnis des Leibniz’schen Denkens beiträgt. Die Texte befassen sich mit wesentlichen Themen der Leibniz’schen Logik und Metaphysik, z. B. mit den (...) Grundbegriffen „Monade“ (und deren „Körperhaftigkeit“), „Entelechie“, „Nous“, mit dem Problem der Individuation (Individuum, Atomismus, Einheit), mit den substanziellen Formen, mit der Wissenschaft im Allgemeinen und der Technik, mit der Transformation der Logik, mit den Prinzipien (nämlich denjenigen des zureichenden Grundes, der Individuation und der Notwendigkeit), mit Zukunft und Kontingenz sowie Vergänglichkeit, mit der Theorie der syllogistischen Folgerung, usw. Diese Themen werden stets in der Gegenüberstellung von Leibniz und Aristoteles behandelt – sie zeigen daher, wie Leibniz aristotelische Thesen übernahm, veränderte oder kritisierte. The search for the historical sources of Leibniz’s philosphy initially seems to be unending. All the essays in this volume outline more clearly the influence of Aristotle’s philosophy on Leibniz’s thought. In this context a fundamental aim is to contribute to the analysis of this philosophical relationship and to demonstrate that Aristotle’s philosophy, in the opinion of our authors, plays a decisive role in the understanding of Leibniz’s thought. The texts address fundamental themes of Leibniz’s logic and metaphysics, e.g. the basic concepts of ‘monads’ (and their ‘corporality’), ‘entelechy’ and ‘nous; the problem of individuation (individual, atomism, unity); substantial forms; knowledge in general, and technology; the transformation of logic; principles (namely those of sufficient grounds, of individuation and of necesssity); future and contingency and transientness; the theory of syllogistic deduction, etc. These themes are regularly considered in the comparison between Leibniz and Aristotle – they demonstrate how Leibniz took over, treated or criticised Aristotelian theses. (shrink)

On prior's reconstruction, The master argument of diodorus contains an equivocation and so is invalid for one class of diodorean "propositions." but diodorus knew of such "propositions" and an argument in his treatment of motion can be used to bring them under the master argument's sway. Also, Despite the consensus of antiquity, The master argument does not commit diodorus to determinism, Although it commits him to non-Deterministic theses which can be easily misinterpreted as (...) deterministic. (shrink)

Using Aristotle's well-known sea battle as our example, we offer a precise, intelligible analysis of future contingent assertions in the presence of indeterminism. After explaining our view of the problem, we present a picture of indeterminism in the context of a tree ofbranching histories. There follows a brief description ofthe semantic bases for our double-time-reference theory of future contingents. We then set out our account. Before concluding, we discuss some ramifications of, and alternatives to, a double-time-reference approach to the (...) problem of future contingents. There are some technical ideas at the foundation of our analysis, ideas of which most philosophers are largely ignorant; on our view, in the absence of mastery ofthese ideas it is quite impossible to speak responsibly about either indeterminism or free will. (shrink)

'God necessarily exists, since it is not possible for things to be otherwise, as Aristotle shows in the Metaphysics.' So Mehmed II, the Ottoman conqueror of both Constantinople and Trebizond, tells George Amiroutzes, the Byzantine scholar and native of Trebizond, in the beginning of Amiroutzes' dialogue The Philosopher, or On Faith. The dialogue is a literary recreation of the conversations between Mehmed, a Muslim, and Amiroutzes, a Christian. In the course of The Philosopher, the two debate the role of logic (...) and rationality in religious debate, the nature of God, and the fate of the body and soul in the afterlife. Surprisingly complex and subtle arguments emerge, firmly situated in their fifteenth-century context but steeped in the long Greek philosophical tradition. Previously known only from a sixteenth-century Latin translation, The Philosopher was recently rediscovered in a Greek manuscript in Toledo. In this volume, John Monfasani presents both the editio princeps of this manuscript and the first translation of the text from the Greek, with an introduction that discusses the life of Amiroutzes and the text as well as two appendixes that offer texts and translations of two additional documents related to Amiroutzes and The Philosopher. (shrink)

Everyman’s Library commemorates its fiftieth anniversary very aptly with this issue as its thousandth volume of a classic text of some 2,300 years of age, which through varying fortunes has been a major influence in European culture. As a transcendental science Metaphysics makes no concession to the semi-curious; Aristotle’s inaugurating textbook is understandably concentrated and obscure. A literal version of this formidable text would have no appeal to the general reader, innocent largely of the Greek idiom and of philosophical jargon, (...) while a personal paraphrase could not carry the authentic voice of a past master. Mr. Warrington simply takes the existing Oxford version, retranslating it into easier, more fluent English and rearranging its fourteen books into a free, logical order. In this he is guided by their matter and by the critico-historical views of Jaeger and Ross, outlined in a short Introduction by Sir David himself. He has added chapter titles, numbered sections, prefixing their main groups with a short summary of contents and has courageously kept clear the main line of Aristotle’s argument by relegating all parentheses to footnotes, to which he adds his own identification of historical references. Radical re-arrangement justifies itself by success—here a forbidding classic is presented with the immediate, systematic clarity of a modern text. (shrink)