Michael Wedin argues against the prevailing notion that Aristotle's views on the nature of reality are fundamentally inconsistent. According to Wedin's new interpretation, the difference between the early theory of the Categories and the later theory of the Metaphysics reflects the fact that Aristotle is engaged in quite different projects in the two works--the earlier focusing on ontology, and the later on explanation.

Two main claims are defended. The first is that negative categorical statements are not to be accorded existential import insofar as they figure in the square of opposition. Against Kneale and others, it is argued that Aristotle formulates his o statements, for example, precisely to avoid existential commitment. This frees Aristotle's square from a recent charge of inconsistency. The second claim is that the logic proper provides much thinner evidence than has been supposed for what appears to be the received (...) view, that is, for the view that insofar as they occur in syllogistic negative categoricals have existential import. At most there is a single piece of evidence in favor of the view?a special case of echthesis or the setting out of a case in proof. (shrink)

In "Metaphysics" Gamma 3 Aristotle declares that the philosopher investigates things that are qua things that are and that he therefore should be able to state the firmest principles of everything. The firmest principle of all is identified as the principle of non-contradiction (PNC). The main focus of Gamma 3 is Aristotle's proof for this identification. This paper begins with remarks about Aristotle's notion of the firmness of a principle and then offers an analysis of the firmness proof for PNC. (...) It focuses on some key assumptions of the proof and on the range and force of the proof. Aristotle closes Gamma 3 with the claim that PNC is ultimate in the sense that all other principles somehow rest on it. This, rather controversial, claim is given a defensible reading and shown to be central to the chapter's effort to establish PNC as the firmest principle of all. As such it completes the firmness proof and is not simply an appended remark. (shrink)

Michael V. Wedin presents a rigorous reconstruction of the deductions in Parmenides' Way of Truth: the most important philosophical treatise before Plato and Aristotle. He answers criticisms which claim that Parmenides' arguments are shot through with logical fallacies, and argues against natural explanations of Parmenides in the Ionian tradition.

This paper considers I) whether Aristotle's notion of form is 'compositionally plastic' and II) whether matter is in any way to be included in the form of natural things. It pursues (I) and (II) with respect to two texts only: De Anima I-2's socalled definition of anger and the notorious young Socrates passage from Metaphysics VII.11. Neither passage supports indusion of anything material in the form and both are consistent with compositional plasticity. To thus extent the support what I call (...) the purification of form. (shrink)

In On Generation and Corruption, Aristotle rejects the very possibility of such a thing as Anaximander’s apeiron. Characterized as a kind of intermediate stuff, the apeiron turns out to consist of contraries and as such is impossible. Commentators have rightly noted this point and some have also indicated that Aristotle offers an argument of sorts for his negative estimate. However, the argument has received scant attention, and it is fair to say that it remains unclear exactly why Aristotle rejects Anaximander’s (...) intermediate stuff. Indeed, it is unclear how Aristotle’s argument is supposed to run in the first place. This paper offers a reconstruction of Aristotle’s argument for the impossibility of the apeiron, and on this basis offers to explain Aristotle’s grounds for rejecting Anaximander’s intermediate stuff. This is especially called for in light of the fact that Aristotle himself thinks that there can be intermediate stuffs. Finally, some attention is given to the parallel between the apeiron and Aristotle’s prime matter. (shrink)

It is argued that Wittgenstein did not abandon his tractarian position because he was of the opinion that the Tractatus suffered from an intemal incoherence inherited from the incompatibility of the thesis of mutual independence of elementary propositions and the picture theory of the proposition or an incoherent notion of the elementary proposition itself. In the way suggested, TLP provides no opportunity for such concems to arise, for the inner sub-surface structure of a proposition cannot cause conflict with MI. It (...) rather was the sub-surface nature of elementary propositions itself - a feature fundamental to the Tractatus as a whole - Wittgenstein came to be dissatisfied with and gave up in favour of a new notion of elementary proposition. (shrink)

This paper raises some difficulties with the strategy suggested in Robert Nozick’s Philosophical Explanations for explaining why there is something rather than nothing. I am concerned less with his adoption of an egalitarian, as opposed to inegalitarian, explanatory stance (the net effect of which is to detach for independent consideration the question, “Why is there something?”) than with his use of a crucial assumption in reasoning from the egalitarian point of view. I argue that this assumption, that all possibilities exist, (...) is fatally ambiguous, that the persuasiveness of Nozick’s reasoning depends on at once assuming and blurring the difference between the predicates “does not exist” and “nonexists” and that the attempt to wed a priori reasoning and a posteriori (mystical) practice fails. (shrink)

This paper raises some difficulties with the strategy suggested in Robert Nozick’s Philosophical Explanations for explaining why there is something rather than nothing. I am concerned less with his adoption of an egalitarian, as opposed to inegalitarian, explanatory stance (the net effect of which is to detach for independent consideration the question, “Why is there something?”) than with his use of a crucial assumption in reasoning from the egalitarian point of view. I argue that this assumption, that all possibilities exist, (...) is fatally ambiguous, that the persuasiveness of Nozick’s reasoning depends on at once assuming and blurring the difference between the predicates “does not exist” and “nonexists” and that the attempt to wed a priori reasoning and a posteriori (mystical) practice fails. (shrink)

Anyone with more than casual interest in Aristotle's Categories knows the convention that "predicated of" ["κατηγορεἳται"] marks a general relation of predication while "said of" ["λέγεται"] is reserved for essential predication. By "convention" I simply mean to underscore that the view in question ranks as the conventional or received interpretation. Ackrill, for example, follows the received view in holding that only items within the same category (not arbitrarily, of course) can stand in the being-said-of relation and, thus, that only secondary (...) substances can be said of primary substances. Despite its long received status the convention has never received a fully comprehensive examination and defense. In fact such an account is needed because, while enjoying considerable textual support, certain passages of the Categories appear to clash with the convention. My aim in this paper is, first, to develop and defend the standard interpretation, as I shall call it. Since the standard interpretation has lately been challenged in a closely argued article by Russell Dancy, my defense will proceed partly with an eye to his criticisms. Having met these, I go on to raise some difficulties with the rather unorthodox reading Dancy gives the Categories. The crucial point here turns out to be what Aristotle understands by a paronym. (shrink)

It is argued that Wittgenstein did not abandon his tractarian position because he was of the opinion that the Tractatus suffered from an intemal incoherence inherited from the incompatibility of the thesis of mutual independence of elementary propositions (MI) and the picture theory of the proposition (PIC) or an incoherent notion of the elementary proposition itself. In the way suggested, TLP provides no opportunity for such concems to arise, for the inner sub-surface structure of a proposition cannot cause conflict with (...) MI. It rather was the sub-surface nature of elementary propositions itself - a feature fundamental to the Tractatus as a whole - Wittgenstein came to be dissatisfied with and gave up in favour of a new notion of elementary proposition. (shrink)

It is argued that Wittgenstein did not abandon his tractarian position because he was of the opinion that the Tractatus suffered from an intemal incoherence inherited from the incompatibility of the thesis of mutual independence of elementary propositions (MI) and the picture theory of the proposition (PIC) or an incoherent notion of the elementary proposition itself. In the way suggested, TLP provides no opportunity for such concems to arise, for the inner sub-surface structure of a proposition cannot cause conflict with (...) MI. It rather was the sub-surface nature of elementary propositions itself - a feature fundamental to the Tractatus as a whole - Wittgenstein came to be dissatisfied with and gave up in favour of a new notion of elementary proposition. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Aristotle's Declaration of a General Science of Being qua Being A Problem for the Science of Being The Content of the General Science of Being Including Axioms in the General Science of Being The Notion of the Firmest Principle Proving Something about an Axiom: the Indubitability Proof of PNC PNC as the Ultimate Principle Defending an Axiom: the Elenctic Proof of PNC Theology and the General Science of Being Notes Bibliography.