Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics has always proved to be fertile ground for at times needless textual emendation. I provide a translation and running commentary on Eudemian Ethics II 2 1220a39–b6 in accordance with the MSS text.

Aristotle says that a fallacy of accident takes place whenever something is held to belong in the same way to an object and to its accident (SE 5 166b28-30). The Received View among interpreters takes “accident” (συμβεβηκός) in that connection to stand for any predicate that is not identical to its subject, and makes the fallacy consist in mistaking predication for identity. Such an analysis, however, gives “accident” a meaning otherwise unattested in the corpus; makes all cases of the fallacy (...) inconclusive, whereas inferences of the same kind are warranted (with a qualification) at different places in the corpus; does not cover cases which in Aristotle’s view fall under the fallacy of accident, for which a different analysis and solution must be provided; and does not square with Aristotle’s own solution in terms of sameness or difference in substance and being. This chapter presents a new take on the subject, grounded on Aristotle’s expressed views in the Sophistical Refutations and other works, according to which the fallacy takes place whenever a substitution of co-extensives, or even of necessary equivalents, makes reciprocation fail to (necessarily) hold between relata. (shrink)

In 1923, Sir Arthur Keith proposed that many common back problems are due to the stresses caused by our evolutionarily novel form of locomotion, bipedalism. In this article, we introduce an updated version of Keith’s hypothesis with a focus on acquired spinal conditions. We begin by outlining the main ways in which the human spine differs from those of our closest living relatives, the great apes. We then review evidence suggesting there is a link between spinal and vertebral shape on (...) the one hand and acquired spinal conditions on the other. Next, we discuss recent studies that not only indicate that two common acquired spinal conditions—intervertebral disc herniation and spondylolysis—are associated with vertebral shape, but also suggest that the pathology-prone vertebral shapes can be understood in terms of the shift from quadrupedalism to bipedalism in the course of human evolution. Subsequently, we place the aforementioned findings under an umbrella hypothesis, which we call the “Evolutionary Shape Hypothesis.” This hypothesis contends that individuals differ in their propensity to develop different acquired spinal conditions because of differences in vertebral shape that relate to the evolutionary history of our species. We end the article with some possible directions for future research. (shrink)

The present article argues that Chrysippus' reply to the objection that Fate does away with that which is up to us (and therefore with justice in honor and punishments) consists in shifting the notion of that which is up to us from one in terms of ultimate origination to one in terms of self-sufficient causation—and thus in shifting the very notion of justice in honor and punishments from one in retributive terms to one in rehabilitative terms.

This text analyzes Diogenianus’ testimony (apud Eus., Praep. Ev. VI 8) as a source for Chrysippus’ reply to an objection leveled against Stoic Fate-determinism. I argue that the objection addressed by Chrysippus in the testimony bears relation to the Idle Argument as reported by both Cicero and Origen but, unlike the Idle Argument, deals with the notions of “that which depends on us” (τὸ παρ’ ἡμᾶς), “that which proceeds from us” (τὸ ἐξ ἡμῶν), and the issue of accountability.

In view of Alexander of Aphrodisias’s and Porphyry’s respective positions on the issue, I discuss whether logos apophantikos is to be defined, as DI 4 seems to imply, by its being true or false or rather, as DI 5 seems to imply, by its representing the ontological combination/separation of substrate and attribute through the logical combination/separation of subject and predicate.

If form qualifies as substance, as it is claimed in Metaphysics, then we seem to have a problem: a form appears to be a relative, while evidently no relative is a substance. At any rate, Aristotle had held in the Categories that no primary substance could be a relative; so, if it turns out that form in the Metaphysics is primary substance, then either Aristotle has contradicted himself or else he has revised his categorial ontology to the point where he (...) no longer maintains even that x's being a substance precludes x's being a relative. If, on the other hand, the categories are by the time of the Metaphysics no longer understood to be mutually exclusive of one another, then the categorial framework itself seems fundamentally in jeopardy; that would be in itself an alarming conclusion, since Aristotle appeals to the doctrine of categories repeatedly in the Metaphysics, where the clear impression is that he continues in that work to uphold it in the main. On the entirely credible assumption, then, that the Metaphysics retains the doctrine of categories articulated in the Categories and the Organon, we seem left with the other, unhappy alternative, that form, as primary substance, is a also a relative - if, that is, it can be shown that every form is a relative. (shrink)