This paper examines whether Giordano Bruno’s philosophy should be considered pantheist or immanentist—two philosophies that scholars regard as partly equivalent. However, this paper distinguishes them and argues that Bruno either identified the whole of nature with God or recognized a primary principle that is immanent, yet distinguishable, from matter. In terms of Bruno’s interpretation of the Aristotelian notions of form and matter, the difference between an immanentist view and a pantheist one lies in the role that form (or act) assumes (...) with regard to matter (or potency). This paper maintains that Bruno interpreted and adapted Aristotle’s philosophy to find his own immanentist metaphysics, which is built on the traditional Aristotelian system. This argument was based on the reconstruction of how he used Aristotelian thought as an instrument to subvert Aristotelianism. In particular, Bruno attested that intellect exists within nature, but it is not co-extensive with the whole nature. Finally, the paper highlights how Bruno applied Aristotle’s language, method, and themes to criticize the fundamentals of Aristotelian philosophy and the related traditions. (shrink)

This volume gathers an international team of renowned scholars in the fields of ancient greek philosophy, in order to explore the continuous but changing dialogue between Platonism and Aristotelianism from the early imperial age to the end of Antiquity. While most chapters concern Platonists (Philo, Plutarch, Plotinus, Syrianus, Proclus, Damascius, Philoponus), and their uses or criticism of Aristotle's doctrines, several chapters are also devoted to Peripatetic authors (Boethius and mostly Alexander of Aphrodisias) and their attitudes towards Plato's positions. (...) Each of the eleven chapters draws the attention to specific polemical contexts and philosophical problems which made Platonists and Aristotelians unite against common adversaries like the Stoics, or split up, not only in the fields of metaphysics and cosmology, but also in epistemology, psychology and ethics. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

A collection of the papers and some of the formal responses from a colloquium on the ancient philosopher Aristotle, with one additional paper. The contributors explore Aristotle and how he is perceived and interpreted in different traditions, and by different people.

This work focuses on the revival of Aristotlian thought in Europe. Dr Kassim discusses the influence of Aristotle in Muslim speculative thought, the emergence of a Neo-Aristotlian school in Cordoba, and the transmission of philosophic ideas via Jewish and Christian translators.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Whose Aristotle? Which Aristotelianism? A Historical Prolegomenon to Thomas Farrell’s Norms of Rhetorical CultureCarol PosterThe description of various works of logical and rhetorical theory as “Aristotelian,” although far from unusual, is not particularly informative, because it assumes, incorrectly, that there is some ultimate singular Aristotle being imitated by all authors who consider themselves, or who are labeled by others, Aristotelian. In fact, there never has been (...) an interpretation of Aristotle that satisfies the canon of St. Vincent of Lerins, “quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est”; instead, there have been almost as many Aristotles as there have been interpreters of Aristotle. Thomas Farrell’s Norms of Rhetorical Culture (1993), therefore, is not so much situated against the background of some single, unique, undisputed Aristotle but, rather, as he himself mentions, within an evolving tradition of Aristotelianism.The historical transformations of Aristotle include two distinct traditions, one oriented toward scientific-technical philosophy andthe other toward rhetorical-poetic and ethical humanism.1 The technical-philosophccical tradition, in which Aristotle was conceived primarily [End Page 375] as metaphysician and natural philosopher, emphasized the logical treatises of the organon, the speculative systems of the Physics and Metaphysics, and the scientific works of the biological treatises. This tradition originated in the Greco-Roman middle and Neoplatonic schools and has had a continuous history stretching through the Middle Ages, Counterreformation, neo-Thomism, and certain contemporary European postmodernisms. The rhetoricalhumanistic tradition, on the other hand, emphasizing the Rhetoric, Poetics, Politics, and ethical treatises, views Aristotle as a practical philosopher, concerned with the productive arts and those matters about which knowledge is probable rather than certain. This rhetorical-humanistic tradition was a relatively negligible aspect of Aristotle’s ancient reception, had a slight presence in the Islamic and Latin traditions, developed in certain strands of Renaissance humanism, and came to fruition in the late eighteenth century, primarily, though not exclusively, within a Protestant tradition. In eighteenth-and early nineteenth-century Britain, the rhetorical-humanistic Aristotle found expression directly in neoclassical poetics and, in a more complicated fashion, in a group of authors (including the Scottish moderates and the slightly later Oxford Noetics) who enlisted Aristotle in a battle against skepticism and materialism. It is the latter of the two strands of the rhetorical-humanistic Aristotle that resurfaces (albeit in an indirect and mediated fashion) in the work of Alastair MacIntyre, Richard McKeon (and other members of the Chicago school), and Thomas Farrell, who used Aristotle’s model of probable deliberation and habituated virtue to construct an alternative to twentieth-century skepticism and materialism.Significant Strata of Aristotelian ReceptionThe history of Aristotelian reception is not monolithic. There has been tremendous variation across periods and national traditions of what works were considered authentically Aristotelian, which of those works were considered important, and how they were interpreted. The phases of Aristotelian reception immediately relevant to Farrell’s work include Greco-Roman Platonism, Islamic commentary, medieval Latin Christianity, Renaissance humanistic textual recovery, neoclassical “Aristotelianism,” early modern Aristotelianism and anti-Aristotelianism, and the nineteenthcentury rehabilitation of Aristotle. This article will summarize briefly pre eighteenth-century interpretations of Aristotle as prolegomena to a close analysis of the works of two eighteenth-century Scotsmen, James Moor [End Page 376] and John Gillies, whose reconfiguration of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Poetics, and Organon as tools for practical wisdom in modern society anticipated (and, albeit indirectly, influenced) Farrell.2AntiquityTwo distinct strands of Aristotelian reception, the rhetorical-humanistic and technical-philosophical, originated in antiquity. Of these, the rhetorical-humanistic strand was substantially less important. Neither the Poetics nor the Rhetoric was well known in antiquity. The Rhetoric was not the subject of a Greek commentary until the Byzantine period and, although occasionally cited by Greco-Roman rhetoricians including Cicero, Quintilian, and Dionysus of Halicarnassus, was not widely or carefully read.3 The Poetics was also virtually unknown and was never the subject of an ancient commentary.4The Greek commentaries on Aristotle, which are predominantly technical-philosophical in character, include some fifteen thousand pages of extant text. Despite the existence of a distinct ancient Peripatetic school, the majority of commentaries were produced in the Platonic schools, where the works of Aristotle... (shrink)

The aim of this article is to pinpoint some of the features that do—or should—make Aristotelianism attractive to current moral educators. At the same time, it also identifies theoretical and practical shortcomings that contemporary Aristotelians have been overly cavalier about. Section II presents a brisk tour of ten of the ‘pros’: features that are attractive because they accommodate certain powerful and prevailing assumptions in current moral philosophy and moral psychology—applying them to moral education. Section III explores five versions of (...) the view that Aristotle's position is somehow anachronistic and out-dated. As none of those bears scrutiny, Section IV addresses ten features of Aristotelianism that do not seem to sit well with contemporary moral philosophy and psychology: the genuine ‘cons’ of Aristotelianism. It is subsequently argued that if we want to avoid acquiring Aristotelianism on the cheap, those less attractive features need to be engaged head-on: reinterpreted, revised or simply rejected. (shrink)

The relation between Aristotle’s own views and inquiries and later Aristotelians, observes Sharples, is a problematic one. Right from the outset one may ask whether Aristotle’s immediate followers should be judged as “Aristotelians,” if they are to be so judged at all, in terms of their loyalty to his doctrines or in terms of their readiness to continue his inquiries in a self-critical spirit. This in turn leads to the following three questions. First, “how far was Aristotle (...) himself sufficiently critical of his own opinions?” Answer: “with hindsight, not sufficiently.” Second, “does loyalty demand that the pupils should be less critical of basic doctrines than their originator?” Answer: “ancient attitudes were perhaps more influenced by loyalty than our own.” Third, “why should the question whether Aristotle’s followers were Aristotelians interest us anyway?” Answer: “Aristotle has meant many different things to different people at different times, and … this has not surprisingly led them to challenge the claims of those who adopt different interpretations to be Aristotelians at all.” Consequently, concludes Sharples, “the question whether a particular position is Aristotelian or not cannot be separated from—and so may contribute to the debate concerning—the interpretation of Aristotle himself”. (shrink)

Modern philosophy of mathematics has been dominated by Platonism and nominalism, to the neglect of the Aristotelian realist option. Aristotelianism holds that mathematics studies certain real properties of the world – mathematics is neither about a disembodied world of “abstract objects”, as Platonism holds, nor it is merely a language of science, as nominalism holds. Aristotle’s theory that mathematics is the “science of quantity” is a good account of at least elementary mathematics: the ratio of two heights, for (...) example, is a perceivable and measurable real relation between properties of physical things, a relation that can be shared by the ratio of two weights or two time intervals. Ratios are an example of continuous quantity; discrete quantities, such as whole numbers, are also realised as relations between a heap and a unit-making universal. For example, the relation between foliage and being-a-leaf is the number of leaves on a tree,a relation that may equal the relation between a heap of shoes and being-a-shoe. Modern higher mathematics, however, deals with some real properties that are not naturally seen as quantity, so that the “science of quantity” theory of mathematics needs supplementation. Symmetry, topology and similar structural properties are studied by mathematics, but are about pattern, structure or arrangement rather than quantity. (shrink)

In recent years virtue theory, which is derived from Aristotle’s moral philosophy, has become increasingly popular as an alternative both to deontological theories such as Kant’s and to consequentialism such as Mill’s utilitarianism. Here Rosalind Hursthouse (1943– ) sketches the main features of such virtue theory or neo-Aristotelianism, bringing out its distinctive approach. Neo-Aristotelians are interested not just in particular actions, but in the flourishing of individuals over a lifetime; they are concerned with character traits rather than duties. (...) The essential question for a neo-Aristotelian is not ‘Which actions are right or wrong?’ but rather ‘How am I to live well?’ (From Rosalind Hursthouse, Beginning Lives, 1987). (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: I Aristotle and Early Modern Philosophy II Medieval Thought in Early Modern Scholasticism III The Philosophical Textbook IV Conclusions.

This volume is a detailed study of the concept of the nutritive capacity of the soul and its actual manifestation in living bodies in Aristotle and Aristotelianism. Aristotle’s innovative analysis of the nutritive faculty has laid the intellectual foundation for the increasing appreciation of nutrition as a prerequisite for the maintenance of life and health that can be observed in the history of Greek thought. According to Aristotle, apart from nutrition, the nutritive part of the soul (...) is also responsible for or interacts with many other bodily functions or mechanisms, such as digestion, growth, reproduction, sleep, and the innate heat. After Aristotle, these concepts were used and further developed by a great number of Peripatetic philosophers, commentators on Aristotle and Arabic thinkers until early modern times. This volume is the first of its kind to provide an in-depth survey of the development of this rather philosophical concept from Aristotle to early modern thinkers. It is of key interest to scholars working on classical, medieval and early modern psycho-physiological accounts of living things, historians and philosophers of science, biologists with interests in the history of science, and, generally, students of the history of philosophy and science. (shrink)

This volume studies the teaching of Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics (the standard textbook for moral philosophy) in the universities of Renaissance Italy. Special attention is given to how university commentaries on the Ethics reflect developments in educational theory and practice and in humanist Aristotelianism. After surveying the fortune of the Ethics in the Latin West to 1650 and the work’s place in the universities, the discussion turns to Italian interpretations of the Ethics up to 1500 (Part Two) and then (...) from 1500 to 1650 (Part Three). The focus is on the universities of Florence-Pisa, Padua, Bologna, and Rome (including the Collegio Romano). Five substantial appendices document the institutional context of moral philosophy and the Latin interpretations of the Ethics during the Italian Renaissance. Largely based on archival and unpublished sources, this study provides striking evidence for the continuing vitality of university Aristotelianism and for its fruitful interaction with humanism on the eve of the early modern era. (shrink)

This perceptive study of John Case, teacher of philosophy at Oxford from the mid-1560s until his death in 1600 and author of expositions of Aristotle which became standard textbooks of the time, focuses on his intellectual and cultural milieu and reveals.

6. Leo J. Elders, S.V.D., The Greek Christian Authors and Aristotle7. Ian Mueller, Hippolytus, Aristotle, Basilides; 8. John P. Anton, The Aristotelianism of Photius's Philosophical Theology; 9. Therese-Anne Druart, Averroes: The Commentator and the Commentators; Contributors; Index.

This book is a full study of the remaining evidence for Xenarchus of Seleucia, one of the earliest interpreters of Aristotle. Andrea Falcon places the evidence in its context, the revival of interest in Aristotle's philosophy that took place in the first century BCE. Xenarchus is often presented as a rebel, challenging Aristotle and the Aristotelian tradition. Falcon argues that there is more to Xenarchus and his philosophical activity than an opposition to Aristotle; he was a (...) creative philosopher, and his views are best understood as an attempt to revise and update Aristotle's philosophy. By looking at how Xenarchus negotiated different aspects of Aristotle's philosophy, this book highlights elements of rupture as well as strands of continuity within the Aristotelian tradition. (shrink)

This book discusses the Aristotelian setting of Thomas Hobbes' main work on natural philosophy, "De Corpore (1655).

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Aristotelianism of Locke's PoliticsJ. S. MaloyThose, then, who think that the positions of statesman, king, household manager, and master of slaves are the same are not correct. For they hold that each of these differs not innly in whether the subjects ruled are few or many... the assumption being that there is no difference between a large household and a small city-state.... But these claims are not (...) true.Aristotle, Politics, 1252a1The Power of a Magistrate over a Subject may be distinguished from that of a Father over his Children, a Master over his Servant, a Husband over his Wife, and a Lord over his Slave. All which distinct Powers happening sometimes together in the same Man, if he be considered under these different Relations, it may help us to distinguish these Powers one from another, and show the difference betwixt a Ruler of a Common-wealth, a Father of a Family, and a Captain of a Galley.Locke, Two Treatises of Government, 2.22 [End Page 235]When the political theory of John Locke first appeared in print in 1689, the imposing authority of Aristotle stood ready to defeat it. So believed many of Locke's critics, at any rate. After his death in 1704, when it was confirmed that the internationally renowned author of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding had also written the anonymously published Two Treatises of Government, Locke was widely taken to represent a distinctive type of political theory based on individual rights and the social contract. Learned opposition to this sort of voluntaristic account of politics has often rested on Aristotle, "the Philosopher," the ancient authority on the human instinct for sociability and the hierarchal communities arising therefrom. Within the modern academy "liberals," "communitarians," and "republicans" have again made a habit of pronouncing the names of Locke and Aristotle in tones of antagonism. In broad outline the reasons have not changed in two or three centuries ago: the first stands for natural-rights individualism and the second for an organic conception of community.3What are we to make of this conventional opposition in light of the awkward fact that the second of Locke's Two Treatises, "Of Civil Government," takes the reclamation of the Aristotelian conception of political power as its principal purpose? Locke announced in the opening chapter of that essay that his chief target, Robert Filmer, had misunderstood the nature of distinctively political relationships, mainly by ignoring the differences between authority in political society and authority within the family (L 2.1–2). Locke alleged that this basic conceptual mistake of the Filmerian theory of "absolute" and "arbitrary" government was the source of its disastrous practical ramifications, which he had summed up in the first Treatise as "Chains for all Mankind" (L 1.1). Filmer, in turn, had taken Plato's side in the debate about political and familial rule which Aristotle had joined in the opening lines of his Politics (A 1252a). Though a perceptive reader long ago noticed the Aristotelianism of Locke's response to Filmer—Locke and Algernon Sidney were the "two famous men" to whom Rousseau alluded as having defended Aristotle against Filmer's Platonic notions of power—no modern scholar has attempted a full explanation of the significance of Locke's intervention in this debate.4 [End Page 236]The analysis below will show that Aristotle was the classic source for both the principal theoretic argument of Locke's second Treatise and the method employed to pursue it, i.e. using analogies of power for conceptual comparison and distinction. But my argument for the Aristotelianism of Locke's politics will rest on contextual as well as textual grounds. Not only was Locke pursuing an evident variation on the central theme of bk. 1 of Aristotle's Politics; he was far from alone in doing so. This sort of project was by the 1680s typical of radical constitutionalist writing in Europe, including not only English Whigs like Sidney and James Tyrrell but also a long line of writers on both sides of the English Channel, stretching back at least a century, who deployed a particular interpretation of Aristotle in the service... (shrink)

In general historical treatments, one often encounters the idea that Kepler’s and Newton’s discovery of elliptical planetary orbits marked a decisive break with tradition and definitively undermined any possibility of an Aristotelian approach to physics and astronomy. Although Aristotle had no understanding of gravity, I want to demonstrate that elliptical orbits were a refinement of earlier models and that one can produce an Aristotelian account of elliptical orbits once one corrects his crucial mistake about gravity. One interesting side-effect of (...) this straightforwardly Aristotelian approach is that it eliminates the empty, second focal point around which any elliptical system revolves. I should emphasize that the present paper is not intended to contradict, oppose, or replace any aspect of contemporary mathematical physics or astronomy. The point is not to propose a new scientific theory—we all know that planetary orbits are elliptical—but to demonstrate that metaphysical Aristotelianism is more versatile than is generally supposed. (shrink)

The modern world was in part born as a reaction against Aristotelianism. However, the image of Aristotle to which modern philosophers reacted was partial, to say the least. Paradoxical though it may seem, today, more than twenty-three centuries on, we may now be in the most advantageous position for understanding the Stagirite's philosophy and applying it to contemporary problems. The present book contributes to the forming of an idea of Post-modern reason inspired by a constellation of Aristotelian concepts, (...) such as prudence (phronesis), practical truth (aletheia praktike), science in act (episteme en energeiai), metaphor (metaphora), similarity (homoiosis) and the imitation-creation pair (mimesis-poiesis). They all form an interconnected network and together they make up an idea of reason that may prove suitable for the present. These concepts offer the most promising basis for undertaking a series of urgent reconciliations: of facts and values, of means and ends, of theoretical and practical reason, of intelligence and emotion. Aristotle's notions could help solve many dualisms of modern times. He offers a third way between identity and difference in ontology and politics, between algorithm and anarchism in methodology, between naïve realism and plain relativism in epistemology, between equivocity and univocity in language, between Enlightenment and Romanticism in culture... On the way, this shift facilitates the relationships between science, arts and ethics - the three parts of the sphere of culture which Modernity had separated - as well as the integration of the sphere of culture itself with the world of life. (shrink)

"Aristotle versus Plato. For a long time that is the angle from which the tale has been told, in textbooks on the history of philosophy and to university students. Aristotle's philosophy, so the story goes, was au fond in opposition to Plato's. But it was not always thus."--from the Introduction In a wide-ranging book likely to cause controversy, Lloyd P. Gerson sets out the case for the "harmony" of Platonism and Aristotelianism, the standard view in late antiquity. (...) He aims to show that the twentieth-century view that Aristotle started out as a Platonist and ended up as an anti-Platonist is seriously flawed. Gerson examines the Neoplatonic commentators on Aristotle based on their principle of harmony. In considering ancient studies of Aristotle's Categories, Physics, De Anima, Metaphysics, and Nicomachean Ethics, the author shows how the principle of harmony allows us to understand numerous texts that otherwise appear intractable. Gerson also explains how these "esoteric" treatises can be seen not to conflict with the early "exoteric" and admittedly Platonic dialogues of Aristotle. Aristotle and Other Platonists concludes with an assessment of some of the philosophical results of acknowledging harmony. (shrink)

This book presents an up-to-date overview of the main new directions taken by ancient philosophy in the first century BC, a period in which the dominance exercised in the Hellenistic age by Stoicism, Epicureanism and Academic Scepticism gave way to a more diverse and experimental philosophical scene. Its development has been much less well understood, but here a strong international team of leading scholars of the subject reconstruct key features of the changed environment. They examine afresh the evidence for some (...) of the central Greek thinkers of the period, as well as illuminating Cicero's engagement with Plato both as translator and in his own philosophising. The intensity of renewed study of Aristotle's Categories and Plato's Timaeus is an especially striking outcome of their discussions. The volume will be indispensable for scholars and students interested in the history of Platonism and Aristotelianism. (shrink)

In Studies on Early Modern Aristotelianism Paul Richard Blum shows that Aristotle’s thought remained the touchstone of modern philosophy; for it was the philosophy taught at universities. The concept of philosophy at Jesuit schools forms the first part of this book. Their impact on the sciences and mathematics in combination with Renaissance ideas of nature is the topic of the second part. The transformation of Aristotelian metaphysics and theology under the influence of the Renaissance is the third area (...) of this book. Surprising continuity from the late Middle Ages into modernity and the radical difference of subject centered modern philosophy from ‘teachable’ school philosophy are innovative in these studies. (shrink)

Shedding new light on the understudied Italian Renaissance scholar, Andrea Cesalpino, and the diverse fields he wrote on, this volume covers the multiple traditions that characterize his complex natural philosophy and medical theories, taking in epistemology, demonology, mineralogy, and botany. By moving beyond the established influence of Aristotle's texts on his work, Andrea Cesalpino and Renaissance Aristotelianism reflects the rich influences of Platonism, alchemy, Galenism, and Hippocratic ideas. Cesalpino's relation to the new sciences of the 16th century are (...) traced through his direct influences, on cosmology, botany, and medicine. In combining Cesalpino's reception of these traditions alongside his connections to early modern science, this book provides a vital case study of Renaissance Aristotelianism. (shrink)

This paper assesses the complex debt of Machiavelli’s moral and political thought to Aristotle and the Aristotelian tradition, especially in its Scholastic variant. My claim is that Machiavelli’s attitude vis-à-vis Aristotle is twofold because it reflects two different aspects of Aristotle’s moral and political theory that are closely intertwined and that were selectively developed by subsequent Aristotelian Scholastic commentators: a teleological and a realist aspect. On one hand, Machiavelli provides a model that dramatically breaks with Aristotle (...) on, for example, the question of the origin of human society and the moral prudence of rulers. On the other hand, Machiavelli’s engagement with Aristotle amounts to something more complex than a simple rejection. The Florentine appears to read Aristotle rather selectively, and emphasizes the realist dimension of certain Aristotelian ideas that suit his own original overturning of classical moral and political ideas. I use two paradigmatic themes in which the Aristotelian teleological-realist divide is most evident, i.e. the account of the origin of human society and the case of prudence, in order to prove the dual relationship of Machiavelli’s thought with Aristotelianism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 62.2 (2001) 211-232 [Access article in PDF] Aristotelianism and the Soul in the Arabic Plotinus Peter Adamson It is common for historians of medieval thought to note that the influence of Aristotle on Islamic philosophy was tinged with Neoplatonism, thanks to a text known as the "Theology of Aristotle." It is now known that the "Theology" is in fact not (...) a work of Aristotle's but rather a paraphrase of parts of Plotinus's Enneads. Certainly, the misattribution of this work to Aristotle facilitated the spread of Neoplatonism as an aspect of Islamic peripateticism, as represented by such authors as al-Kindi, al-Farabi, and Ibn Sina (Avicenna). Some efforts have been made to assess its influence on particular philosophers, most notably Ibn Sina whose notes on the "Theology" have come down to us and who may have doubted its authenticity. 1 Until recently the attention paid to the "Theology" itself has tended more towards philological than philosophical analysis, focusing in particular on possible sources of the text. 2 Yet the differences between the original writings of Plotinus and its Arabic paraphrase are of considerable philosophic interest. In recent years research into the "Theology" has begun to pay more attention to the philosophical issues raised by the paraphrase. 3 Here I hope to further this trend by suggesting that, although the author [End Page 211] of this paraphrase was not Aristotle, his own thought was suffused with Aristotelianism.First, we should note that the so-called "Theology of Aristotle" is itself only a part of an original, larger paraphrase of the Enneads. It is now usually thought that this paraphrase was authored by a member of al-Kindi's circle in ninth- century Baghdad. 4 The original Arabic Plotinus has been preserved in three separate texts. The first is the "Theology" (hereafter Th.A) which is itself subdivided into a prologue, a series of "headings" (ru'us), and ten chapters, each called a mimar, meaning "chapter" in Syriac. 5 This is by far the longest of the three texts. We also have the so-called Letter on Divine Science, formerly attributed to al-Farabibut shown by Kraus to belong to the Arabic Plotinus materials. 6 Finally, there are the Sayings of the Greek Sage, a set of fragments collected from various sources by Rosenthal and Lewis which also paraphrases Plotinus in Arabic. 7 As argued by F. W. Zimmermann, these three sources all derive originally from a lost, perhaps much more extensive, paraphrase of Plotinus. 8 They are united both by writing style and philosophical content. I will call them, collectively, AP; and since I cannot here provide conclusive arguments as to the identity of their author, I will call him the Adaptor.One of the major goals of al-Kindi and his circle seems to have been the synthesis of available Greek texts into a coherent philosophy. Thus al-Kindi himself produced doxographical works (for example, his Discourse on the Soul) and a survey of the Aristotelian corpus. 9 If the Adaptor worked in such a milieu, he may well have been influenced by other philosophical sources in making a paraphrase of Plotinus. Zimmermann has suggested that such an influence is at [End Page 212] work in mimar III, where the Adaptor may have drawn on Aristotle's De Anima in order to "reconcile" Plotinus with an Aristotelian theory of the soul as the entelechia of the body. 10 Here I will examine the relationship of soul and body in AP and expand on Zimmermann's thesis in an effort to show that the Adaptor was, in this respect at least, an Aristotelian interpreter of Plotinus. I will close by examining the relationship between AP and a contemporaneous work, the paraphrase of the De Anima produced in al-Kindi's circle. Mimar III and the Question of entelechiaStudents of Aristotle are familiar with his thesis that soul is the form of the body. In the De Anima Aristotle explains this further by claiming that the soul is the "perfection" or entelechia of... (shrink)

In this paper I would like to establish the priority of Aristotle in the thought of George Frederick Holmes (1820-1897), the South's leading philosopher of the nineteenth century. Accompanying this aim is the possibility of an improved understanding of the historical "Mind of the South" and its particular orientation to the ongoing rise of modern civilization. Holmes copiously presented a firmly articulated "metaphysics" in a myriad of articles over a period stretching from the early 1840's until the end of (...) the 1870's. Holmes spent much of his philosophical energy struggling with such then influential moderns as Comte, Spencer and Darwin. But for all that the basis of his thought remained Aristotelian in nature. If it be allowed that Aristotle can make a "comeback" under today's conditions perhaps George Frederick Holmes is also entitled to be viewed once again as a "live option" given the fundamentally Aristotelian nature of his thought. (shrink)

This compelling and distinctive volume advances Aristotelianism by bringing its traditional virtue ethics to bear upon characteristically modern issues, such as the politics of economic power and egalitarian dispute. Clearly divided into three parts and featuring a contribution from Alasdair MacIntyre, this volume bridges the gap between Aristotle's philosophy and the multitude of contemporary Aristotelian theories that have been formulated in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Part I draws on Aristotle's texts and Thomas Aquinas' Aristotelianism to (...) examine the Aristotelian tradition of virtues, with a chapter by Alasdair MacIntyre contextualising the different readings of Aristotle's philosophy. Part II offers a critical engagement with MacIntyrean Aristotelianism, assessing MacIntyre's development of Aristotelian themes and revealing their conflict with modernity. Firmly establishing the relevance of Aristotle's thought today, Part III demonstrates the ongoing influence of Aristotelianism in contemporary theoretical debates on governance and politics. Extensive in its historical scope, this is a valuable collection relating the tradition of virtue to modernity, which will be of interest to all working in virtue ethics and contemporary Aristotelian politics. (shrink)

아리스토텔레스의『니코마코스 윤리학』안에서 언급되고 있는 교설들을 성 토마스가 어떻게 변형시켰는가에 관해서, 최근 학자들 사이에서 두 가지의 상반된 주장을 펼치고 있는 것을 볼 수 있다. 하나는 철학적인 해석이다. 이것은 성 토마스가 아리스토텔레스의 본래적인 의도를 명확하게 드러내려고 노력함으로써 순수하게 철학적인 토대 위에서 아리스토텔레스의 교설들을 변형시켰다는 주장이다. 또 다른 하나는 신학적인 해석이다. 이것은 성 토마스의 변형은 그리스도교의 신념들의 빛 안에서 아리스토텔레스를 해석함으로써 아리스토텔레스의 교설들을 신학적으로 변형시켰다는 주장이다. 이에 대하여 본 연구자는 성 토마스의 아리스토텔레스의 “행복”(eudaimonia)에 관한 교설에 관하여 철학적인 해석을 하는 학자들 중에서 도이그(James C. (...) Doig)의 주장을 중심으로 그의 성 토마스에 대한 논의들이 무엇인지를 검토해볼 것이다. 그리고 나서, 본 연구자는 제이퍼(Harry V. Jaffa), 도나토(Antonio Donato), 브래들리(Denis J. M. Bradley) 등의 학자들의 주장을 중심으로 해서 도이그의 논의들에 대한 반론을 제기할 것이다. 이에 대하여 첫째, 본 연구자는 도이그가 성 토마스의 교설들에 대하여 동의하면서 그의 교설들을 설명하고 있는 성 토마스의 “인간 본성으로서의 행복”에 관한 내용으로서 관조적인 행복의 우월함, 도덕적인 행복의 열등함, 그리고 하나의 본성적인 목적으로서 완전한 행복에 관하여 구체적으로 알아볼 것이다. 그리고 나서, 이에 대한 도이그의 성 토마스의 교설들에 관한 주장에 대한 반론으로서 브래들리(Denis J. M. Bradley), 도나토(Antonio Donato), 제이퍼(Harry V. Jaffa) 등의 주장들을 중심으로 해서, 성 토마스의 신학적인 변형과 신학적인 의도로서 철학적인 변형 등을 제시할 것이다. 둘째, 본 연구자는 도이그(James. C. Doig)가 성 토마스의 교설에 관하여 긍정적으로 평가하면서 설명하고 있는 “인간인 한에서 지극히 복된 사람”과 “신적인 것”에 관하여 논의할 것이다. 그리고 나서 이에 관하여, 브래들리(Denis J. M. Bradley), 도나토(Antonio Donato), 제이퍼(Harry V. Jaffa) 등의 주장들을 중심으로 해서 여러 가지의 반론들을 제시할 것이다. 그리하여 본 연구자는 도이그의 주장, 즉 성 토마스는 아리스토텔레스의 행복에 관한 교설에 관하여 철학적인 변형만을 시도했다는 주장은 전혀 설득력 없다는 주장을 펼칠 것이다. 그리하여, 본 연구자는 비록 성 토마스가 아리스토텔레스의 교설들을 토대로 하여 그의 교설들을 전개했을지라도, 성 토마스는 한 사람의 철학자로서가 아닌 한 사람의 신학자로서 그의 행복에 관한 교설을 전개한 것임에 틀림없다는 결론을 내릴 것이다. (shrink)

This book is a detailed exploration of the Hispanic intellectual context and the different Aristotelian traditions that prevailed until the 16th century. Through a review and contextualization of Aristotelian thinkers and texts, it argues that a unique Aristotelian tradition was formed in New Spain. The characteristic differences of Novohispanic Aristotelianism are a consequence of five factors: contact with the autochthonous cultures of America, the impact of the colonial organization, the influence of the Salamanca humanist tradition, the presence of the (...) Italian Aristotelianism of Renaissance translators in the university curricula and in the intellectual polemics of the time, and a peculiar assimilation of primitive and Old Testament Christianity in relation to indigenous people. The book analyzes the works of Alonso de la Veracruz, Bartolomé de las Casas, Bernardino de Sahagún, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, and Francisco Xavier Clavijero, reconsidering them in light of the history of ideas in New Spain and the contributions of Byzantine translators. It also offers a reflection on the problem of addressing Mexican colonial sources. This volume will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate philosophy students, as well as researchers focused on Aristotle, Renaissance philosophy or Latin American studies. (shrink)

A trope is an abstract particular. Trope theorists maintain that tropes exist and argue that they can solve important philosophical problems, such as explaining the nature of properties. While many contemporary interpreters of Aristotle read him as a trope theorist, few commentators distinguish different versions of trope theory. Which, of any, of these versions did Aristotle hold? Classical trope theorists say that individuals just are bundles of tropes. This essay offers a reading of Categories 2-5 and Metaphysics VII-VIII (...) that aligns Aristotle's view with nonclassical trope theory, according to which objects are more than just bundles of tropes. (shrink)

This dissertation discusses how being and unity are related in the metaphysical systems of Aristotle and Plotinus. I suggest that Aristotle's metaphysical position contrasts with what I call the Platonic metaphysical hierarchy, a general trend in Platonism to place being in a dependent relationship to unity, and particular things in a dependent relationship to being. Aristotle, by contrast, sees being and unity as dependent on particulars. Understanding Aristotle against the backdrop of the Platonic metaphysical hierarchy is (...) of some assistance in understanding his critique of Plato, and his own position in the Metaphysics regarding substance, cosmology and first principles. Aristotle's Unmoved Mover is substance par excellence , and stands as an exemplary cause for the First Moved Mover, guaranteeing the motion necessary for the generation of other particulars, but it does not provide them with being and unity. This is because being and unity are dependent on, and logically posterior to, particulars. I also examine some of the difficulties in Aristotle's system which Plotinus takes up in the Enneads . Plotinus, in trying to remain true to his understanding Platonism, rejects Aristotelianism, and posits instead, a revised version of the Platonic metaphysical hierarchy. In addition to examining Plotinus, critique of Aristotle, I examine some of Plotinus, other influences. These include Parmenides, Plato, Albinus and Numenius, in order to provide some grounding in understanding Plotinus' own philosophy. I conclude with an examination of Plotinus' metaphysics that shows its consistency with the general direction of Platonism, if in a different, hypostatic system. Plotinus I first principle, the One, is a synergy of negative and positive theology, grounded in the belief that being and thinking are extensionally the same in his second principle, Nous. That being and thinking are multiple necessitates the positing of a principle of unity which is "[Special characters omitted.] ," (beyond being) a phrase which Plotinus takes over from Plato's Republic in the service of his own philosophy. (shrink)