This paper approaches Husserl’s analysis of time-consciousness from a mereological perspective. Taking as inspiration Bergson’s idea that pure durée is a multiplicity of interpenetration, I will show, from within Husserlian phenomenology, that the absolute flow can indeed be described as a whole of interpenetrating parts. This mereological perspective will inform my re-consideration of the much-discussed issue of Husserl’s self-criticism concerning the schema of content and apprehension. It will also reveal a fundamental similarity between Husserl’s conception of the absolute flow and (...) Sartre’s conception of lived temporality. This paper consists of four sections. Section 2 presents the basic elements of Husserl’s mereology. Section 3 introduces the difficulty encountered by Husserl’s early account of time that makes use of the schema. I will examine Barry Dainton’s criticism of Husserl’s theory of time-consciousness against the background of the older debate between Meinong and Stern, a debate that has informed Husserl’s own account. Section 4 distinguishes two common criticisms of the schema from Husserl’s own self-criticism, which is in turn divided into two steps. It is shown how the second step of this self-criticism implies the interpenetration of the absolute flow and responds to Dainton’s criticism. Finally, Sect. 5 concludes with some comparative remarks. I will show how Husserl’s notion of absolute flow, as mereologically interpreted, anticipates Sartre’s conception of consciousness as self-transcendence, as well as how it accommodates the apparently conflicting mereological intuitions of Aristotle and Bergson. (shrink)

Does God have any relevant role in the new natural law theory of Germain Grisez and John Finnis? Finnis declared in Natural Law and Natural Rights that he wanted to offer “a theory of natural law without needing to advert to the question of God’s existence or nature or will.” Grisez claims that “man’s ultimate beatitudo cannot consist in the vision of God.” Indeed, there is no consistent role for God in their philosophical theory. In this article, the author shows (...) that their mistakes about God depend first on their metaphysical way of looking at nature, which is closer to thinkers like Hume and Kant than to Aristotle and Aquinas; and second on some strong misunderstandings in moral philosophy about the concept of ultimate end. He shows the unfortunate theological outcome their flawed metaphysics and morality have already produced. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 13.1 (Spring 2013): 35–45. (shrink)

Contrary to what most interpreters hold, in the "Nicomachean Ethics" Aristotle is not committed to the view that people of established vicious character could never become good. The present paper proves this result (1) by giving a better reading of 1114 a 12-21, a passage which has traditionally been taken to assert that unjust and self-indulgent people are doomed to a lifetime of vice; (2) by showing that when Aristotle refers to self-indulgent people as "incurable", he does not (...) mean that they could never change, but only that they could not change as a result of external influences such as persuasion or punishment; (3) by proving that although Aristotle regards the desires of vicious people as determined by their character, there is room within Aristotelian moral psychology for the possibility that people of corrupt character become motivated to begin a process of moral reform. (shrink)

The naïve idea of “size” for collections seems to obey both Aristotle’s Principle: “the whole is greater than its parts” and Cantor’s Principle: “1-to-1 correspondences preserve size”. Notoriously, Aristotle’s and Cantor’s principles are incompatible for infinite collections. Cantor’s theory of cardinalities weakens the former principle to “the part is not greater than the whole”, but the outcoming cardinal arithmetic is very unusual. It does not allow for inverse operations, and so there is no direct way of introducing infinitesimal (...) numbers. Here we maintain Aristotle’s principle, instead halving Cantor’s principle to “equinumerous collections are in 1–1 correspondence”. In this way we obtain a very nice arithmetic: in fact, our “numerosities” may be taken to be nonstandard integers. These numerosities appear naturally suited to sets of ordinals, but they depend, for generic sets, on a “labelling” of the universe by ordinals. The problem of finding a canonical way of attaching numerosities to all sets seems to be worth further investigation. (shrink)

Contrary to what most interpreters hold, in the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle is not committed to the view that people of established vicious character could never become good. The present paper proves this result (1) by giving a better reading of 1114 a 12-21, a passage which has traditionally been taken to assert that unjust and self-indulgent people are doomed to a lifetime of vice; (2) by showing that when Aristotle refers to self-indulgent people as "incurable", he does not (...) mean that they could never change, but only that they could not change as a result of external influences such as persuasion or punishment; (3) by proving that although Aristotle regards the desires of vicious people as determined by their character, there is room within Aristotelian moral psychology for the possibility that people of corrupt character become motivated to begin a process of moral reform. (shrink)

There are some interesting similarities between Aristotle’s ‘mixed actions’ in Book III of the Nicomachean Ethics and the actions often thought to be justifiable with the Doctrine of Double Effect. Here I analyse these similarities by comparing Aristotle’s examples of mixed actions with standard cases from the literature on double effect such as, amongst others, strategic bombing, the trolley problem, and craniotomy. I find that, despite some common features such as the dilemmatic structure and the inevitability of a (...) bad effect, Aristotle’s mixed actions do not count as cases justifiable through application of the Doctrine of Double Effect because they fail to meet the crucial necessary condition of the Doctrine according to which the bad effect can only be a merely foreseen side-effect and not an intended means. (shrink)

Did Aristotle believe that upbringing determines character, and character, in turn, determines action? Some scholars answer this question in the affirmative and thus read Aristotle as a determinist with little use for the idea that people are morally responsible for what they do. The present paper counters this interpretation by showing that a deterministic reading of Aristotle’s theory of action and character is indefensible in the face of the text. The author points to three main facts: (1)a (...) passage in the Nicomachean Ethics shows conclusively that Aristotle did not regard upbringing as determining moral character; (2) the doctrine of character expounded in Nicomachean Ethics III does not entail that people can only act in conformity with their moral dispositions, and (3) Aristotle viewed alternatepossibilities as genuinely open to moral agents, not as available to them only in principle (i.e., if they had received a different upbringing or had had different beliefs and desires). (shrink)

Did Aristotle believe that upbringing determines character, and character, in turn, determines action? Some scholars answer this question in the affirmative and thus read Aristotle as a determinist with little use for the idea that people are morally responsible for what they do. The present paper counters this interpretation by showing that a deterministic reading of Aristotle’s theory of action and character is indefensible in the face of the text. The author points to three main facts: (1)a (...) passage in the Nicomachean Ethics shows conclusively that Aristotle did not regard upbringing as determining moral character; (2) the doctrine of character expounded in Nicomachean Ethics III does not entail that people can only act in conformity with their moral dispositions, and (3) Aristotle viewed alternatepossibilities as genuinely open to moral agents, not as available to them only in principle (i.e., if they had received a different upbringing or had had different beliefs and desires). (shrink)

I argue that in Eudemian Ethics II 8 Aristotle provides us with a general definition of force applicable to all natural phenomena. This definition points us to an important, though rarely not...

It is a curious feature of Hegelian studies in English that its practitioners seem incapable of tackling their subject without first disclaiming any adherence to the more metaphysical side of Hegel's thought, be it called “speculative metaphysics,” “dialectical logic” or whatever. I say “curious” because I doubt that the same scholars would feel obliged to enter an equivalent disclaimer at the head of a study on, say, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza or even Newton—even though all of these classics have a (...) metaphysical side at least as abstruse as any of Hegel's worse romantic excesses. Hegel himself, if he could witness the practice, would be flattered by it. He would not see it as an indication that “the problems of [his] logic remain alien and artificial to us in ways that the problems of Cartesian and Kantian philosophy do not” but, on the contrary, as a hidden acknowledgement that, whether for good or bad, his philosophy is still alive, still so close to our culture that we instinctively feel the need of exorcizing it ritually, like a demon capable of frightening us. (shrink)

Aristotelian philosophy is generally regarded as incompatible with the mathematical methods and principles that form the basis of modern science. This book offers an entirely new perspective on this presumed incompatibility. It surveys the tradition of the Oxford Calculators from its beginnings in the fourteenth century until Leibniz and the philosophy of the seventeenth century and explores how the Calculators' techniques of quantification expanded the conceptual and methodological limits of Aristotelianism. In the process, it examines a large number of authors, (...) some of them never studied in this context. Exploring the relationship between various late medieval disciplines, the book sheds new light on the problem of continuity vs. discontinuity between scholasticism and modern science. Beyond its historiographical purpose, this book also hopes to be a source of inspiration for present-day philosophers of science. Co-edited by Daniel A. Di Liscia and Edith D. Sylla with the collaboration of Paul Bakker. (shrink)

"This is an absolutely dazzling book on Orwell, casting a brilliant new light, not just on Orwell himself, but on the entire intellectual history of our time. It is a 'must read', not just for devotees of Orwell, but for anyone concerned with discussions of socialism and capitalism, totalitarianism and democracy, ideological passion and intellectual honesty. It will prove a superb teaching aid at both undergraduate and graduate levels."--Yuri Maltsev, co-author of The Tea Party Explained and editor of Requiem for (...) Marx "There has always been some mystery about how Orwell could give us the nightmare world of Ingsoc (English Socialism) while himself remaining an unrepentant English Socialist. This and other puzzles about Orwell are convincingly solved in Dr. Steele's masterly account. If you want to know what made Orwell tick, you just have to read this eloquent, provocative, and hugely entertaining book."--Barry Smith, Director of the National Center for Ontological Research and author of Austrian Philosophy. (shrink)

Focusing on the relationship between the Eudemian and the Nicomachean Ethics, this collection of essays studies major themes from and new perspectives on Aristotle's ethics. Suitable for students and scholars of ancient philosophy and ethics, particularly Aristotle's two ethics.

The present dissertation explores the Aristotelian notion of the bekousion. This notion---together with its opposite, the akousion---assumes center stage in those parts of Aristotle's ethical works where he examines the conditions under which an action is open to moral evaluation. It also plays an important role in Nicomachean Ethics III 5, where Aristotle argues that people are the makers of their own character. The main aim of the dissertation is to show that Aristotle's use of "bekousion" and (...) "akousion " to qualify actions reflects considerations of moral responsibility, and that these, in turn, answer to principles that are themselves moral, and not just metaphysical. Proving this result is philosophically significant because a number of prominent contemporary philosophers have understood moral evaluation as a two-step procedure. That is, they believe, non-moral critertia---especially causal criteria---serve to determine whether an individual is responsible for an action; and it is only after this first step, and depending on the results it yields, that moral considerations about the action come into play. Aristotle's treatment of topics such as action, duress, and the formation of character exposes the error of this position by clarifying that ascriptions of moral responsibility always presuppose a moral context, and are in large measure independent of causal considerations. (shrink)