Abstract

This thesis studies the logical techniques that Aristotle uses to create a single unified science from a variety of different items, and considers how he balances the requirements of autonomy of sciences with the fact that one and the same science treats and makes use of widely diverse objects. Specifically I study the techniques of analogy, focality and cumulation. ;In the second and third chapters I study analogy in the biological works and show how Aristotle distinguishes it from genus and conclude that the distinction is based on essentialism and the conceptual unity of the object under consideration. I argue that degrees of identity among animals and their parts is a matter of case by case interpretation using empirical evidence, and that analogical identity is based not just on final cause but also on formal and material factors. I then go on to fit analogy into its place in demonstrative science and distinguish its role from that of genus. I suggest that two analogically identical items are identical in virtue of a shared attribute which is proved to belong in both cases through two discrete demonstrations. ;The fourth chapter discusses the role of abstraction in analogy by relating these to the distinction between intensional and extensional classes. Aristotle's use of analogy only makes sense within an essentialist and intensional framework. I argue that analogy is dependent upon abstraction of the "snub-nose" variety. ;The fifth chapter moves on to consider the relationship between analogy and other techniques of subject matter unification, focality and "cumulation", in which several subjects are related as prior and posterior. I use the examples of souls and friendships to investigate the logical relations between these three techniques. ;The final chapter deals with unity in metaphysical subjects, the principle of non-contradiction, being, good and potentiality, and compares focal and analogical solutions. I argue that the focal arrangement of items is logically identical with the arrangement found in ordinary cases of unified sciences with an obvious single subject matter, and apply this solution to the science of being qua being