This essay examines Aristotle's discussion of the recognition scenes in Euripides' Iphigenia in Tauris and in Polyidus' alternative scenario. It suggests that Aristotle might show interest in Polyidus because he intuits the significance of the timing of the recognition scenes within the plot. Gluck's eighteen-century opera, Iphigénie en Tauride, maintains the general structure of Euripides' play but borrows Polyidus' recognition scene. The operatic recognition provides a clear dramatic frame to the brief references to Polyidus in the Poetics and facilitates (...) an analysis of the differences between Euripides and Polyidus. (shrink)

Aristotle's criticism of Platonic Forms in the Metaphysics has been a major source for the understanding and developments of the theory of Forms in later Antiquity. One of the cases in point is Aristotle's argument, in Metaphysics I 9, 990b22-991a2, against Forms of non-substances. In this paper, I will first provide a careful analysis of this passage. Next, I will discuss how the argument has been interpreted - and refuted - by the fifth-century Neoplatonists Syrianus and Proclus. This (...) interpretation has played an important role in the broader context of the Neoplatonic debates on the range of Plato's theory of Forms, which was one of the traditional problems discussed about the Forms in later Platonism. (shrink)

Aristotle's claim in Metaphysics Z.6 that "each substance is the same as its essence" has long puzzled commentators. For it seems to conflict with two other Aristotelian theses: (1) primary substances are individuals (e.g., Socrates and Callias), and (2) essences are universals (e.g., Man and Horse). Three traditional solutions to this difficulty are considered and rejected. Instead, to make the Z.6 equation consistent with (1) and (2), I propose that it be interpreted to be making something other than (...) a straightforward identity claim. Callias is the same as his essence in the sense that to be identical to Callias is to be the same man as Callias (where Man is the essence of Callias). In general, x is identical to y if, and only if, x and y are the same E (where E specifies the "what it is to be" for x, i.e., the essence of x). So each of Socrates and Callias is the same as his essence, and Man is that essence, but Socrates and Callias are not identical, for they are not the same man. (shrink)

Metaphysics 4 and 5, that is Γ and Δ, comprise two of the most important books in the Aristotelian corpus and, perhaps, in the history of philosophy. Metaphysics 4 opens with the famous line "there is a science of being qua being," while Metaphysics 5 presents Aristotle's "philosophical dictionary." As with so much of Aristotle, the ideas expressed in these books are capable of a wide range of interpretation. In Alexander's commentaries, we possess a relatively early interpretation by a (...) sophisticated philosopher who knew well not only his Aristotle but also Aristotle's opponents and their quarrels. Thus these commentaries are not only intrinsically interesting on their own philosophical terms, but are filled with cross references within the text of Aristotle--cross references that tell us how these texts were being construed within the schools of the time--as well as arguments revealing the background of live substantive issues introduced by Aristotle and his place within late Greek philosophy. Finally, as Madigan points out in his introduction, those interested in Neoplatonism will also find these commentaries of great interest because, as Prophyry reports, they were apparently read at Plotinus's school. Indeed, Alexander himself is often thought of as a Neoplatonic commentator. (shrink)

The author claims that parts of the De Caelo comprise a distinct work of Aristotle and can be taken as an early composition, earlier than the De Philosophia. The book is a careful philological and philosophical analysis of this text, and takes a position in regard to the authors who have commented on it. The doctrine of the text is contrasted to Plato’s cosmology, especially concerning the concepts of physics and aether. The text is also compared to Aristotle’s later teaching (...) and many differences are noted: hylomorphism, entelechy, and the unmoved mover, are conspicuously absent. Besides analyzing the relevant parts of De Caelo, the author has remarks about such works as the Protreptic, De Philosophia, and Physics I and II.—R.S. (shrink)

In my comment on Katerina Ierodiakonou’s paper, I outline my understanding of the programme of De anima and how it bears on Aristotle’s discussion of the transparent in De anima 2.7, in contrast with his discussion of the transparent in De sensu 3. I then explore Aristotle’s notion of transparency and sketch an alternative to Ierodiakonou’s interpretation of Aristotle’s views as to how colours are generated in physical objects. At the end, I raise two objections to Alexander’s interpretation of the (...) transparent as discussed by Ierodiakonou. (shrink)

This is a careful, line-by-line and often word-by-word commentary on Book XII of the Metaphysics. The commentary is preceded by a seven part introduction which deals with the theology of Book XII, noûs, self-knowledge, desire, the place of the book in Aristotle’s writings, its date and structure, and the problem of Chapter 8 and Aristotle’s monotheism. Elders claims Chapter 8 was not written by Aristotle but by a disciple or disciples. He also claims that Book XII contains at least five (...) other distinct treatises which come from different periods in Aristotle’s life. Throughout his book Elders summarizes the opinions of all the important modern and ancient commentators who have written on the questions he examines, and makes copious references to other Greek thinkers and other works of Aristotle. For example the section on self-knowledge moves through several dialogues of Plato and through Aristotle’s ethical writings. Philological observations abound, and Elders is sensitive to philosophical aspects in them. Some of his remarks about terms like ousia and dokei contain helpful philosophical insights. The presentation is lean, clear and direct. Elders has marked off another definite part of Aristotle’s Metaphysics and has supplied us with all the information, sources and scholarly commentary that are available for it.—R. S. (shrink)

Aristotle’s viewpoints on modal propositions have been subjects of debate and exploration among scholars since his immediate successors. This study delves into how Aristotle defines assertoric and modal propositions and elucidates the correlations between these propositions and assertoric ones. Traditionally, commentators have interpreted propositions based on the premise that what belongs to the subject also belongs to the predicate. However, in this research, propositions are interpreted as ones in which what is predicated on the predicate will also be predicated (...) on the subject. The outcome of this investigation demonstrates the modal premise process through the Barbara and Celarent syllogism forms in the first figure, which can be reduced to encompass all other forms. (shrink)

One group of commentators takes book 10 as determinative and thus tortures the text in book 1 to say the same thing. This position is described as intellectualist or exclusivist and produces certain puzzles in reading Aristotle’s ethical theory. These puzzles are not benign since the privileged position given wisdom in book 10 seems at odds with the discussion of virtue in book 1 and its development in the Nicomachean Ethics as a whole. Indeed, Aristotle appears inconsistent or even (...) contradictory, recommending in these two brief chapters of book 10 a life devoted to contemplation that only grudgingly allows for the necessity of the practical life discussed in such detail in the rest of his ethical works. If this is the case, under what conditions are we expected to forgo contemplation to engage in the various activities of the moral virtues? Since no conditions are spelled out in the text, the range of speculation is confused and ways around the apparent inconsistencies complex. (shrink)

The ancient commentators remain the last body of important Greek writings to be translated into any modern language and this series under the general editorship of Richard Sorabji meets this need. The present volume is especially important both because of its intrinsic interest and because through Porphyry the Categories became a basic textbook of logic with the Neoplatonic school.

The principate of Augustus coincided with a surge of interest in the short Aristotelian treatise which we now entitle Categories, contributing to its later installation at the outset of the philosophical curriculum and its traditional function as an introduction to logic. Thanks in part to remarks made by Plutarch and Porphyry , the origin of this interest has often been traced to Andronicus of Rhodes: his catalogue and publication of the Aristotelian corpus began with the Categories and may have drawn (...) fresh attention to a previously obscure treatise. But the later Neoplatonic sources name several other philosophers who also discussed the Categories and played an important role in crafting its interpretation during the first centuries of our era. For example, the Neoplatonist Simplicius discusses the views of Stoics and Platonists who questioned the Categories' value as a treatment of grammar or ontology, while others defended its usefulness as an introduction to logic. These early debates, as these later sources suggest, exercised a lasting influence on the shape of subsequent philosophy and philosophical education within and beyond the Aristotelian tradition. (shrink)

The psychology of Aristotle has never been understood in a historically correct way. A new interpretation of the De anima will be proposed in which this work can be seen as compatible with the psychology that can be reconstructed from the fragments of Aristotle's lost dialogues and the De motu animalium and other biological works and the doxographical data gathered from ancient writers besides the commentators. In De anima, II, 412b5, where psychè is defined as 'the first entelecheia (...) of a natural body that is organikon,' the words 'natural body' should not be taken to mean 'the body of a living plant, animal or human being' but to stand for 'elementary body.' And the qualification 'organikon' should not be understood as 'equipped with organs' but in the sense of 'serving as an instrument to the soul.' This 'instrumental body' that is inseparably connected with the soul is the seat of desire, which physically influences the parts of the visible body. Besides those two corrections there are the words ta merè in 412b18 that should be taken as meaning not 'parts of the body' but 'parts of the soul.' Aristotle is arguing there that even those parts of the soul that are not yet actualized in the embryo of a new living being can be said to be 'not without body.'. (shrink)

Diogenes Laertius relates the tale that Aristotle, upon being reproached for giving alms to a debased fellow, replied, ‘It was not his character, but the man, that I pitied.’ Some such reply is equally apt in apology for a paper paying homage to an idea long discredited in the philosophical world, Aristotle's theory of Place. I have been moved, not indeed by the apparent character of Aristotle's theory, for that is easily reproached, but by what has proved for (...) the philosophical tradition of infinite worth, what we may call the theory's ‘latent virtue’. There is a danger, of course, as hard-headed philologists and commentators are always reminding us, that in attending to this latent virtue we may be paying sentimental homage to the dead. Thus it will be important that we first carefully and coldly examine the overt character of the Aristotelian doctrine before attempting to justify any philosophical compassion felt in its presence. More than likely in such a disinterested inquiry it will be found that our ‘debased fellow’ is a good deal more of a man than the modern reformers have allowed. (shrink)

Aristotle's Heirs explores the development of Peripatetic thought from Theophrastus and Strato to the work of the commentator Alexander of Aphrodisias. The book examines whether the internal dynamics of this philosophical school allowed for a unity of Peripatetic thought, or whether there was a fundamental tension between philosophical creativity and the notions of core teachings and canonisation. The book discusses the major philosophical preoccupations of the Peripatetics, interactions with Hellenistic schools of thought, and the shift in focus among Greek (...) philosophers in a changing political landscape. It is the first book of its kind to provide a survey of this important philosophical tradition. (shrink)

v. 1. The Greek tradition -- v. 2. Greek texts and fragments of the Latin translation of "Alexander's" commentary -- v. 3. Appendices, Danish summary, indices.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Aristotle's Poetics and the PaintersGraham ZankerAristotle's Poetics uses the example of painting as an analogy to illustrate certain facts about poetry, specifically epic, tragedy, and comedy. But the use of painting as an analogy, though ancillary to Aristotle's subject, should yield evidence, if properly evaluated, on how the philosopher thought about painting, because the use of a thing as an analogy actually depends on how its user (...) regards the thing. We can legitimately infer Aristotle's opinions about certain aspects of painting from his comments about poetic mimesis, because analogy is by nature reflexive, or symmetrical: if poetry resembles painting in certain respects, then painting must in turn resemble poetry in those respects. And since, as I hope to show, the characteristics in question can be clearly defined from the Poetics, and since the terms denoting them are given consistent meanings throughout the treatise in regard to poetry, it would be all the more inconceivable that Aristotle did not mean the same with these terms when he applied them to painting. In fact, Aristotle's views on painting are important for establishing how painting was perceived in the fourth century B.C., at least in certain respects which I suggest are well worth noting. Here I refer in particular to the question of subject matter, the aspect of morality, and the issue of idealization in classical Greek painting. This short essay, then, is offered as an example of how an ancient treatise on literary aesthetics can benefit the art historian, especially by providing a framework within which the Greeks themselves viewed the art of their time.It is vital, first of all, to establish precisely what Aristotle is referring to when he says that poets represent people in action and that it is necessary that these be (48a1-6). For this I offer the following provisional and unprejudicial translation, the precise points of reference of which will be defined in the course of my argument: "either serious men () or insignificant men ()..., either better () than our level or worse () or of like level () as well, just like the painters, [End Page 225] for Polygnotus depicted superior people (), Pauson inferior, and Dionysius people of like level ()."This passage is often taken to refer to the moral status of the characters in poetry and in the paintings of Polygnotus, Pauson, and Dionysius. This is particularly so in the case of modern art historians. Rouveret, for example, affirms without substantiation that "pour Aristote, toute action est colorée par un ethos, d'autre part, les ethé se regroupent en deux catégories principales, les et les. Ces deux groupes déterminent deux types de mimesis tragique et comique. La tragédie représente donc toujours des " (1989, 132).1 And, having defined and in this way, she tries to show (121-61) how the text illuminates Aristotle's comment that Polygnotus was an while Zeuxis was not (50a25).But there are compelling reasons for believing that the reference here is basically to social class, with a flow-on effect on moral status.2 [End Page 226] In that case, according to Aristotle, tragedians and Polygnotus depict people of superior social status, comedy and Pauson represent people of inferior social status, and an unspecified literary genre (a type of tragedy if the Cleophon of 48a12 is the Athenian tragedian mentioned in the Suda)3 as well as the painter Dionysius (in all likelihood the fifth-century painter mentioned by Pliny at NH 35.113) depict people of an average social status "like you and me" (). That the reference is primarily social is clear in that the, who are the proper province of tragedy according to Aristotle, are described at 53a10-12 as people of high repute and in great prosperity,, the "people of distinction" like Oedipus and Thyestes, who are members of distinguished families.4The social reference of these terms in the Poetics is secured, and the relationship of the concepts denoted by them to moral considerations can be illustrated by reference to 54a19-22. There Aristotle argues that it is a prime requisite of tragedy that its characters be morally good,, in order that the true tragic effect... (shrink)

With _Aristotle’s Teaching in the “Politics,” _Thomas L. Pangle offers a masterly new interpretation of this classic philosophical work. It is widely believed that the _Politics_ originated as a written record of a series of lectures given by Aristotle, and scholars have relied on that fact to explain seeming inconsistencies and instances of discontinuity throughout the text. Breaking from this tradition, Pangle makes the work’s origin his starting point, reconceiving the _Politics_ as the pedagogical tool of a master teacher. With (...) the _Politics_, Pangle argues, Aristotle seeks to lead his students down a deliberately difficult path of critical thinking about civic republican life. He adopts a Socratic approach, encouraging his students—and readers—to become active participants in a dialogue. Seen from this perspective, features of the work that have perplexed previous commentators become perfectly comprehensible as artful devices of a didactic approach. Ultimately, Pangle’s close and careful analysis shows that to understand the _Politics_, one must first appreciate how Aristotle’s rhetorical strategy is inextricably entwined with the subject of his work. (shrink)

Alexander of Aphrodisias reports a series of arguments from Aristotle’s Περὶ τἀγαθοῦ purportedly deployed by Plato to defend his doctrine of principles. One of these arguments, the so-called “categorial reduction argument”, underpins the postulation of the two first principles, the One and the Great and Small, through a bipartition of all beings into two categories, labeled ‘in themselves’ and ‘opposites’. I scrutinize this argument and compare it with other Early Academic bicategorial divisions and especially with the tripartite categorial distinction, itself (...) apparently based on material of Early Academic provenance, included in Sextus Empiricus’ Adversus Physicos 2.262-275. I argue that the Περὶ τἀγαθοῦ account of the “categorial reduction argument” leaves open certain philosophical problems, and Sextus’ report is best interpreted, rather than as a more detailed version of that account (as a common view would have it), as an alternative formulation of it that incorporates a philosophical attempt to disentangle those problems. (shrink)

Aristotle’s economic thinking in the Nicomachean Ethics 5.5 and Politics 1 provides one of the earliest analyses of the economic nature exchange. Establishing the significance of Aristotle in this area has often led modern commentators to equate Aristotle’s descriptive analysis of use and exchange to the definitions of use-value and exchange-value as it is found in Karl Marx. In this article, I show that Aristotle’s understanding of use and exchange is qualitatively different from this interpretation, focusing in particular on (...) the ethical nature of use and how, for Aristotle, exchange is an extension of practical deliberation. (shrink)

Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics is central to John McDowell’s classic Mind and World. In Lectures IV and V of that work, McDowell makes three claims concerning Aristotle’s ethics: first, that Aristotle did not base his ethics on an externalist, naturalistic basis (including a theory of human nature); second, that attempts to read him as an ethical naturalist are a modern anachronism, generated by the supposed need to ground all viable philosophical claims on claims analogous to the natural sciences; and third, that (...) a suitably construed Aristotelian conception of “second nature” can form the basis of a viable contemporary philosophy of mind, world, and normativity. This paper challenges each of these three claims. Aristotle’s ethics, we will claim alongside Terence Irwin, Bernard Williams, Philippa Foot, and many premodern commentators, is based in the kind of physics, metaphysics, and metaphysical biology that McDowell says it cannot be. Historically, we will argue that McDowell’s argument that Aristotle’s ethical reasoning is “autonomous” or “self-standing” is distinctly modern, citing evidence from the leading medieval commentators on the Nicomachean Ethics. The felt need to which McDowell responds, of reading Aristotle’s ethical or political thought as wholly non-metaphysical, arises from out of the successes of the natural sciences in the modern world, which he agrees discredit the Aristotelian, teleological account of nature. In the final part of the paper, we propose that McDowell’s account of normativity, rooted in the non-metaphysical “second nature” he reads into Aristotle, we will contend, is as it stands inescapably relativistic. On a different note, we need also to recognize, as McDowell does not, that this is a new Aristotle, one shaped by our requirements and space of reasons, not the mind and world of the Greek Philosopher himself.
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Aristotle’s notion of force seems to be the same as what we mean by “brute force,” or as an example of the Eudemian Ethics puts it, one is “forced” when one’s hand is literally seized by another and used to strike another person. But closer scrutiny suggests something else must be going on if for no other reason than that Aristotle, in his description of force, makes reference to a do-er (o( pra/ttwn [EN III.1.1110a2]). Based on such an insight, Flannery’s (...) “Force and Compulsion in Aristotle’s Ethics” subjects the account of forced actions, actions done under compulsion, and so called “mixed actions” in Aristotle’s ethical treatises to careful scrutiny. In my comments I focus upon two of his claims: First, that although Aristotle includes a notion of “brute force” in his account of force, he doesn’t limit his account just to that notion; and second, that Aristotle’s account of force presupposes or includes what he calls “a particular anthropology.”. (shrink)

Presents a survey of what Arabic philosophers, as commentators of Aristotle's _Physics_, have contributed to philosophy and science in the Middle Ages. Their influences on each other and the extent of the influences of previous Greek commentators on them, are also examined.

Aristotle’s treatment of mixed, first-figure, problematic-assertoric syllogisms has generated a good deal of controversy among modern commentators.I argue that W.D.Ross’s criticism of A.Becker’s cr...

Commentators have often held that aristotle's general doctrine of change commits him to a persisting material substrate for every change, And to an indeterminate material substrate (prime matter) for elemental transformation. I argue that though aristotle accepts a common matter for the four elements, Both these claims are false.

In this fascinating introduction, David Bostock presents a fresh perspective on one of the great classics of moral philosophy: Aristotle's Nicomachaen Ethics. He argues that it is, and deserves to be, Aristotle's most widely studied work, for much of what it has to say is still important for today's debate on the problems of ethics. Here, Bostock guides the reader through explanations and evaluations of all the main themes of the work, exploring questions of interpretation and the differing (...) views of a range of commentators. He also emphasizes the philosophical merits and faults of the doctrines that emerge, critically discussing them in a simple, straightforward way. Each chapter concludes with suggestions for further reading on the themes discussed within the chapter, and the book finishes with an evaluation of the Ethics as a whole. The ideal companion for study of Aristotle's great insights, this book helps the reader to engage with his ideas and arguments as living philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:680 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 33:4 OCTOBER 1995 cal advance over the criticisms of the Parmenidesas to say how the Theaetetusshould be called an "Eleatic" dialogue. The Sophist then reintroduces form, but in its epistemological aspect alone. Extensive use is made of the method of division, presented in the commentary as a rigorous method for precise definition, yet the Sophistfails to distinguish sophistry from philosophy. Two reasons (...) are given. The final division locates sophistry under the productive, rather than the acquisitive arts. (The commentary indicates no surprise at sophistry being categorized as an art at all.) Moreover, the method of division makes no use of value, the real distinguishing feature of the two types of art, although Dorter argues that allusion is made to value through references to the Republic'stheory of soul. The Statesman fills in the missing feature by introducing measurement against the standard of the mean as opposed to relative measurement, finally reintegrating both features that Dorter considers salient aspects of Platonic forms: universality (sameness) from the Sophistand now value (the mean) in the Statesman. The commentary finds that the use of division in the Statesman, where it is not strictly dichotomous, evidences a "decline from the rigor and precision of the divisions in the Sophist"(l 8 l), despite the rejection of division by strict halving in the Phaedrusand in Aristotle. Lack of rigor is not, however, a reproach in Dorter's mind. This is a theme he first develops in commenting on the Parmenides. The methods of division and hypothesis "converge in the form of the good" (227). But where Plato would give "content to the Idea of the good, he eschews any formal methodology whatever, and resorts to the ambiguous world of myth" (242). Ultimately, on this view, assertions about the forms, and responses to many of the Parmenides' criticisms rest on analogy (3off.). Since analogy is identified with a breakdown of"rigor, analogy implies not a theory of proper proportions, but the use of poetic metaphor. The explanatory power of the theory of forms comes up short, which is not a fault of the specific theory of forms, but a fault in the nature of all theory. That rigor must inevitably be.jettisoned is a conclusion taken perhaps too much to heart in a commentary that voices the compelling view that these dialogues are masterpieces in metaphysics. DAVID AMBUEL Mary Washington College David J. Furlr and Alexander Nehemas, editors. Aristotle's "Rhetoric": Philosophical Essays. Proceedings of the Twelfth Symposium Aristotelicum. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994. Pp. xv + 322. Cloth, $45.oo. The Symposium Aristotelicum is a group of Aristotelian scholars who meet every three years, and publish a record of their proceedings. In 199~ they turned their attention to the Rhetoric.This, then, is a series of essays by Aristotelian scholars--more precisely, by scholars of ancient philosophy, since a couple are really specialists on Plato--looking at the Rhetoric. Few are identified as specialists on the Rhetoric itself, and none on the history of rhetoric or on classical oratory. People in those other groups would have very different, but of course not necessarily better, things to say about the Rhetoric. BOOK REVIEWS 68~ Nehemas states the conception of the project in his Introduction: "The essays presented in the 199o symposium and collected here.., address specific texts on the Rhetoric itself, but all of them also connect the Rhetoric with Aristotle's logical, methodological, ethical/political, and poetic views and treatises. A further central concern is, of course, the issue whether Aristotle does or does not respond to Plato's challenge against rhetoric successfully... " (xiii). As I will show, that "of course" is very problematic. The collection is divided into four sections. "The Arguments of Rhetoric" starts with M. F. Burnyeat's "Enthymeme: Aristotle on the Logic of Persuasion," which sets itself the task of determining whether, when Aristotle defines the enthymeme as a sullogismos tis, he means to call rhetorical argument a kind of syliogizing or "a sullogismos of a kind," and along the way offers an account of how Aristotle came later to be read as thinking of the enthymeme as a syllogism with a suppressed premise... (shrink)

ARISTOTLE’S chapter-long digression in the Peri Hermenias to remark a restriction of the law of the excluded middle has touched off reams of commentary, logical, metaphysical and theological. For the theologian, God’s omniscience and human freedom were each at stake; for the metaphysician, the status of time; and logicians professed to find here an application for their remote exercises in trivalent logics. But whatever be the concern of the commentator, a glance at any one of them is likely to discourage (...) a student from pursuing a question which seems destined only to further entangle itself. (shrink)

Aristotle's doctrine of the four causes--formal, final, efficient and material--is famous. But Posterior Analytics B 11 lists "if certain things hold, it is necessary that this does" in place of a standard expression for the material cause. This cause has been dubbed the grounding cause. It has interested scholars since the Greek commentators, who simply assumed that Aristotle meant the material cause. This traditional thesis has been challenged by two views: first, that the grounding cause is a special (...) type of material cause ; second, that it is no material cause at all . ;I set out two arguments for the traditional thesis and consider nine objections to it. Since most of these objections, which constitute the support for the revisionist thesis, can be answered, I reject the revisionist thesis. But in my treatment of one objection it also becomes clear that the traditional thesis is mistaken. The grounding cause is a necessitating cause, yet in Physics B 9 Aristotle makes it clear that many material causes are not necessitating causes. Thus, some form of the modified traditional thesis is true. ;But which form? D. M. Balme suggests that Aristotle means to include only mathematical causes because hypothetical necessity covers all of the relation between matter and product in things which come to be. But Aristotle seems to accept necessitating material causes in several passages in the biological works. In other passages he seems to adopt the position Balme attributes to him. I argue that he does not actually adopt this position, and that he does accept simple necessity in some things which come to be. Thus, the grounding cause is a necessitating material cause, and such causes are found not only in mathematics, but also among things which come to be. (shrink)

The paper deals with the reception of Aristotle’s definition of rhetoric in several Byzantine commentators of Hermogenes’and Aphthonius’ treatises. A justification of critical interpretationof this definition is to be found in the commentaries of Troilus and Athanasius as well as Sopatros and Doxapatres, Maximus Planudes and several anonymouscommentators. The Byzantine tradition has found Aristotle’s definitionof rhetoric to be all too theoretical and insufficiently connected topractical activity, which Byzantium identified with political life.

"Aristotle's On Interpretation, the centrepiece of his logic, examines the relationship between conflicting pairs of statements. The first eight chapters, analysed in this volume, explain what statements are, starting from their basic components - the words - and working up to the character of opposed affirmations and negations." "Ammonius, who in his capacity as Professor at Alexandria from around A.D. 470 taught almost all the great sixth-century commentators, left just this one commentary in his own name, although his (...) lectures on other works of Aristotle have been written up by his pupils, who included Philoponus and Asclepius. His ideas on Aristotle's On Interpretation were derived partly from his own teacher, Proclus, and partly from the great lost commentary of Porphyry. The two most important extant commentaries on On Interpretation, of which this is one, both draw on Porphyry's work, which can be to some extent reconstructed from them."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

This paper differentiates between two readings of Aristotle’s argument that unity and being are not “genē” (UBANG for short). On the first reading – proposed by commentators such as Ackrill, Shields, Loux, and McDaniel – UBANG entails the proposition that there are no features that characterise all beings insofar as they are, referred to by its contemporary proponents, including McDaniel, as ‘ontological pluralism’. On the second reading – proposed here – UBANG does not entail this proposition. The paper argues (...) that only on the second reading does Aristotle’s argument secure its conclusion, that the second reading is, in fact, the correct reading of UBANG, and that anyone who thinks that UBANG succeeds and entails ontological pluralism probably equivocates between two different senses of ‘genos’. (shrink)

Werner Jaeger’s epic-making work on Aristotle long ago established that the form and substance of the various types of Aristotelian logoi, or treatises, are historically unique in that their intelligibility is indissolubly connected with the Lyceum as an educational institution. The laborious reconstructive work of centuries of commentators should not obscure the fact that both the exoteric and the esoteric treatises have their ultimate Sitz im Leben in the Lyceum, that peculiar philosophical school whose communal life formed, perhaps, the (...) first historical semblance of a "university" in the modern sense. Professor Lynch studies Aristotle’s school from its pre-Aristotelian origins as a religious sanctuary in Athens to the expiration of the Athenian Peripatos at the beginning of the first century before Christ. Although his primary focus is not on the relation between the nature of the school and the kind of philosophical thought it produced, his scholarly book reinforces the conviction of the historian of philosophy that investigating the Peripatos as a community of men concerned with higher education is a necessary propaedeutic for understanding how the Perpatetikoi actually philosophized. In a famous essay on the Academy and the Peripatos Hermann Usener discerned that the essence of these philosophical schools resided in their geistige Arbeit. (shrink)

The ancient Greek commentators on Aristotle constitute a large body of Greek philosophical writings, not previously translated into European languages. This volume includes notes and indexes and forms part of a series to fill this gap.

In modern moral philosophy, virtue ethics has developed into one of the major approaches to ethical inquiry. As it seems, however, it is faced with a kind of perplexity similar to the one that Elisabeth Anscombe has described in Modern moral philosophy with regard to ethics in general. For if we assume that Anscombe is right in claiming that virtue ethics ought to be grounded in a sound philosophy of psychology, modern virtue ethics seems to be baseless since it lacks (...) or even avoids reflections on the human soul. To overcome this difficulty, the paper explores the conceptual connections between virtue and soul in Aristotle's ethics. It claims that the human soul is the principle of virtue since reflections on the soul help us to define the nature of virtue, to understand the different kinds of virtues, and to answer the question why human beings need the virtues at all. (shrink)

The paper analyses Averroes's and Aquinas's different reconstructions of Aristotle's ontology in the central books of the Metaphysics. The main claim the paper argues for is that Averroes endorses an explanatory criterion of substantiality, while Aquinas favours an independent existence criterion. The result of these different choices is that the Arabic commentator believes that the forms of sensible objects are more substances than the objects of which they are the forms, while the Dominican Master sticks to the traditional picture (...) that sensible objects hold some kind of priority over their ontological constituents in general and over form in particular. For Averroes, therefore, the central books of the Metaphysics mark a major departure from the Categories ontology, where particular sensible objects are regarded as fundamental entities and so primary substances. On Aquinas's reconstruction, by contrast, sensible objects are still thought of in the Metaphysics as primary substances in spite of their being analysable into matter and form. (shrink)

These commentaries will obviously be of interest to students of Aquinas. They should also be of interest to students of Aristotle, but with one caveat. The translators have had the delicate task of rendering into English not Aristotle’s Greek but the Latin translation of it on which Aquinas is commenting. As the Latin translates Aristotle on something close to a word-for-word basis, so the translators have translated the Latin version of Aristotle into English almost word-for-word. Further, as Macierowski explains, they (...) have taken care to preserve the opacity of terms that Aquinas explains in his commentary; to have clarified these opaque terms in the initial translation of Aristotle’s text would have made Aquinas’s later clarifications nugatory. The rationale is clear and the policy defensible, but the resulting translation of Aristotle can be rough going, for example, “for it is not just from a distance, and not close up, that one of the mixed colors appears, but from anywhere” ; “Therefore they seek in this way, and, not seeking, they still recollect in this way, when that motion comes into being after the other one; but it used to come about when the other motions such as we have. (shrink)

Introduction Aristotle’s criticisms of Plato’s Republic and Laws in the second book of his Politics have appeared to most commentators to be signally unconvincing. They seem to miss the point, beg the question, distort the sense or focus on the merely trivial. As one translator has put it, Aristotle is ‘puzzlingly unsympathetic’, ‘obtuse’ and ‘rather perverse’ as a critic of Plato.1 But while many accept this judgement few draw attention to the implications. These criticisms are one of the few (...) cases in the Aristotelian corpus where we also have the original works of the philosopher being criticised. They constitute a test- case to determine Aristotle’s fairness in transmitting and criticising the thought of others. If he does this so badly in the case of Plato where he can be checked, we must suppose the same in the case of other philosophers where he cannot. The significance of this result for our study of the Pre-Socratics, for instance, where Aristotle is usually our best authority, needs no stressing. So some serious re-examination of these chapters from the Politics would seem to be in order. For reasons of space I must limit myself here to the criticisms of common wives and children in the Republic. -/- Aristotle's Criticism of Socrates' Communism of Wives and Children. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274037904_Aristotle%27s_Criticism_of_Socrates%27_Communism_ of_Wives_and_Children [accessed Aug 12, 2017]. (shrink)

This contribution focuses on Aristotle’s account of place as it is developed in Physics 4, 1–5, a difficult text which has proved to be both influential and a source of problems and discussions in the ancient and medieval Aristotelian tradition. The article starts out by briefly positioning this account within the Corpus Aristotelicum, within the later ancient and medieval Aristotelian tradition, and within the tradition of theories of place and space in general. It goes on to examine the argument of (...) Phys. 4, 1–5, showing that proper attention to Aristotle’s dialectical procedure is crucial for a correct understanding and evaluation of the various claims that we find scattered throughout his text. It then zooms in on the most important questions, problems and loose ends with which Aristotle’s theory confronted his commentators : the puzzling arguments for the rejection of the rival conception of place as an independent three-dimensional extension ; the supposed role of Aristotelian places in the explanation of motion; the supposed role of Aristotelian natural places in the explanation of natural motion; the problem of the required immobility of Aristotelian places; and the problem of the emplacement of the heavens. (shrink)

I use the Corcoran–Smiley interpretation of Aristotle's syllogistic as my starting point for an examination of the syllogistic from the vantage point of modern proof theory. I aim to show that fresh logical insights are afforded by a proof-theoretically more systematic account of all four figures. First I regiment the syllogisms in the Gentzen–Prawitz system of natural deduction, using the universal and existential quantifiers of standard first-order logic, and the usual formalizations of Aristotle's sentence-forms. I explain how the (...) syllogistic is a fragment of my system of Core Logic. Then I introduce my main innovation: the use of binary quantifiers, governed by introduction and elimination rules. The syllogisms in all four figures are re-proved in the binary system, and are thereby revealed as all on a par with each other. I conclude with some comments and results about grammatical generativity, ecthesis, perfect validity, skeletal validity and Aristotle's chain principle. (shrink)

This paper offers an interpretation of the arguments Aristotle offers in "Metaphysics" 9.4, 1047b14-30, for the two modal theses [1] if (if A is the case then B is the case) then (if A is possible then B is possible) [2] if (if A is possible then B is possible) then (if A is the case then B is the case) Aristotle's arguments for these theses have not typically impressed commentators. I offer two arguments which are relatively faithful (...) to Aristotle's text. The arguments rest on the following pair of claims concerning conditionals and possibility respectively [COND] 'if A then B' is true if and only if in any circumstances in which A obtains, B obtains also [TEST] 'possibly A' is true in a range of circumstances C1... $\text{C}_{\text{n}}$ if and only if assuming A true in any C1 gives rise to no impossibilities, once any further required adjustments are taken into account The arguments and the premises on which they rest are stated without formalisation of the theses [1] and [2]. The argument for [1] is a defensible and persuasive argument. The argument for [2] is invalid, though plausible. That is consistent with our differential verdicts on [1] and [2]. [2] appears to be false: the argument provided for [2] explains why Aristotle might nevertheless have asserted it. The aim of the paper is to justify a more positive verdict on Aristotle's arguments than is usual among commentators. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Confronting Aristotle's EthicsDavid DepewConfronting Aristotle's Ethics by Eugene Garver Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. Pp. ix + 290. $49.00, cloth.Readers of this journal are likely to be familiar with Eugene Garver's 1994 Aristotle's Rhetoric: An Art of Character. The main claim advanced in that important book is that for Aristotle rhetoric is an art because it has internal norms and ends. From this, it (...) follows that although any red-blooded rhetor probably does aim at winning a case, advancing a political career, getting rich, and other external goals, what is artful in rhetorical craft (technikos), and hence expressive of the distinctive human capacity for human rationality, is timely argumentation that binds premises to actionable conclusions through displays of good character and apt emotional response. This ordered combination of ethos, pathos, and logos recruits, or if you will interpellates, an audience that is uniquely capable of judging cases, proposals, and performances reasonably. In this way Aristotle defends rhetoric as a genuine art—an intellectual virtue—against Plato's Gorgias.To arrive at this conclusion Garver draws more widely on other parts of the Aristotelian corpus than rhetorical scholars normally do. In particular, he contrasts external with internal ends by using Aristotle's metaphysical distinction between movements, processes, or behaviors (kineseis), of which the world is chock-full, and actualizations or realizations (energeiai) of capacities, which are more rare. Because rhetorical art, qua artful, is an actualization, Garver infers that it is a "practical art" and so brushes up closely against ethical-political praxis. [End Page 184]How closely? To be sure, they are not identical. Praxis actualizes our rational capacities by issuing in deeds done for their own sake rather than in an ordered series of acts whose intelligibility and worth are, in the end, measured by their outcomes or products, as in arts (poiesis) (46). For this reason a rhetor or a doctor can display artfulness by consciously misbehaving as well as by doing his or her job well, whereas willful misbehavior on the part of a moral agent automatically disbars him or her from possessing practical wisdom (phronesis) at all (46; see Nicomachean Ethics [NE] 1140b22–25). Accordingly, even though moral virtues and technical skills are both acquired by slowly internalizing norms that at first aim only at external ends (29) and are both matched to their distinctive ends through their internal rational norms, Aristotle makes it abundantly clear that "the arts, including rhetoric, do not bring the soul into a good condition" (10). They are not the wellspring or protector of the intrinsically good actions that are constituents of happiness. that role is assigned to moral virtues such as prudence, courage, liberality, and, when these are practiced in relation to others, justice and friendship.Confronting Aristotle's Ethics begins by reviewing the above account of rhetorical art in Garver's earlier book. Precisely because that account posits a greater affinity between ethical virtue and craft knowledge than most contemporary analyses of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Garver feels a need to spell out more carefully than usual why Aristotle thinks that the arts, even at their best, cannot yield the intrinsically good acts that the moral virtues do and why for Aristotle the habitual performance of just such acts is constitutive of happiness (eudaimonia). To answer these questions is the aim of the book.Garver reports that satisfactory answers are surprisingly rare even in otherwise sophisticated contemporary Aristotelian studies (5–7). Now and again he points to one reason why this might be so. Since at least the eighteenth century, Aristotle's ethical theory has been commended by sloughing off its original political integument. Even Hannah Arendt, a devotee of Aristotle's conception of the public life if ever there was one, says that public figures must leave happiness to the private lives of little people. this depoliticization of ethics has allowed contemporary commentators to evade Aristotle's burden of proof. As good readers of Aristotle they may try to distance themselves from people who think that there might be an art of happiness by which one can technically realize one's desires. (Your local Barnes and Noble will... (shrink)