In making assertions one takes on commitments to the consistency of what one asserts and to the logical consequences of what one asserts. Although there is no quick link between belief and assertion, the dialectical requirements on assertion feed back into normative constraints on those beliefs that constitute one's evidence. But if we are not certain of many of our beliefs and that uncertainty is modelled in terms of probabilities, then there is at least prima facie incoherence between the normative (...) constraints on belief and the probability-like structure of degrees of belief. I suggest that the norm-governed practice relating to degrees of belief is the evaluation of betting odds. (shrink)

Foreword -- Preface -- Is Aristotle's philosophy "divine, but useless"? -- Surveying the definition of Aristotle's "man" -- Exploring the habits of Aristotle's "ethical man" -- Exploring the habits of Aristotle's "working man" -- Aristotle on becoming something -- The gods and giants grapple with "art"! -- Aristotle's "philosophical man" finds his "goods" -- Aristotle's "philosophical man" sees the world in a grain of sand -- Aristotle's "philosophical man" gets to know his (...) limits -- Aristotle's "philosophical man" finds "God" -- Aristotle's "man" competes in the philosophical marketplace -- Aristotle's "philosophical man" finds himself -- Plato's "clever modern man" loses himself. (shrink)

Drawing primarily on the Nicomachean Ethics, Book IV, Chapter 1 disquisition of the virtue of Liberality, Aristotle's account of the vices of virtue of wealth is discussed in detail. Historical differences between Aristotle's post-Periclean and modern post-industrial ideas of ownership, finance and trade organizations are introduced so to evaluate the relevance of Aristotle's approach to current investigations in business ethics. It is concluded that the lasting value of Aristotle's approach lies in its capacity to incorporate wealth (...) into a comprehensive ordering of human goods. (shrink)

Ross, Hintikka, Waterlow and Makin have all suggested that there is something problematic about Aristotle’s treatment of possibility. I will canvas their concerns and propose that the problem is not so much with Aristotle as the fact that the notion of possibility is not a single simple concept. I will present eight different components of the notion of possibility and suggest that Aristotle may have been aware of all of them. I will conclude whilst his treatment can (...) appear inconsistent, it is instead, an attempt to give a complete description of a complex notion. (shrink)

Philosophical Commentary on the Politics of Aristotle.

In late antiquity, the commentary became the most prominent genre of philosophical writing. Aristotle was the author who received the lion's share of attention, even though the commentators, beginning with Porphyry, were Platonists. Since Aristotle was seen not only as harmonious with Plato, but as more suitable for initial study in philosophy, commentaries for the use of students were naturally more often devoted to his works than to Plato's. The practice of writing commentaries on Aristotle, and the (...) curriculum the commentaries were meant to support, cut across confessional lines. The Arabic tradition of commentary on Aristotle focuses on the earlier parts of the Aristotelian curriculum, with most emphasis on the logical and physical works. Only the greatest commentator of the Arabic tradition, Averroes, commented extensively on the De Anima or the Metaphysics. As in the Greek tradition, confessional divides were no obstacle to continuous and even co-ordinated efforts to understand Aristotle. This is best shown by the group of commentators known as the “Baghdad school.”. (shrink)

The article discusses the problem of natural justice which has been considered by Aristotle in his (1) Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics and (2) Magna Moralia. In his Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics Aristotle says of natural justice that it is changeable and not the same everywhere. The implication seems to be that no action, not even murder, is always wrong. But, as is evident especially from his Magna Moralia, Aristotle distinguishes justice into the “what” (equality), the “in what” (...) (proportion between persons and things), and the “about what” (what things are exchanged with which persons). The article concludes that Aristotle allows for variability only in the “about what,” while in the “what” and the “in what” he allows for no variability. (shrink)

This article aims: (1) to introduce the wider philosophy of Aristotle to nurses and healthcare practitioners; (2) to show that Aristotle's philosophical system is an interdependent whole; and (3) to defend its plausibility and usefulness despite its ancient and alien origins.Aristotle's system can be set out as a hierarchy, with metaphysics at the top and methodology running throughout. Beneath metaphysics are the sciences, with theoretical, practical and productive (or craft) sciences in hierarchical order. This hierarchy does not (...) imply that, say, metaphysics is superior to biology or nursing, but rather that metaphysics can be understood without reference to the other two but, as we shall see, notvice versa.Two themes run through Aristotelian philosophy. The first is Aristotle's method of inquiry, central to which is that our starting point is not pure empirical data, but rather current puzzles; complementing this method is a realist philosophy. The second theme is teleology, the understanding of action in the world in terms of ends, as when we say a plant grows roots to reach water and nutrients.Implications for nursing. Good health is the good functioning of the material aspect of humans; flourishing is good functioning of humansper se. The goals of nursing, which are based on health, are subsumed by the overall human goal of flourishing, and this helps us to understand and set boundaries to health care. Two examples illustrate this. The first is that mental illness is strongly within the purview of nursing and health care whereas bad decisions, such as smoking, are only marginally so. The second is ethics, where it is argued that the attempt to describe ethical decision‐making as in addition to and separate from the decisions made within nursing and health care itself cannot be sustained. (shrink)

Aristotle Poetics: Editio Maior of the Greek Text with Historial Introductions and Philological Commentaries. Edited by Leonardo Tarán and Dimitri Gutas. Mnemosyne Supplements, vol. 338. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Pp. xiii + 536. $226, €162.

Among the works on ethics in the Aristotelian corpus, there is no serious dispute among scholars that the "Eudemian Ethics "is authentic. The "Eudemian Ethics "is" "increasingly read and used by scholars as a useful support and confirmation and sometimes contrast to the "Nicomachean Ethics." Yet, it remains a largely neglected work in the study of Aristotle's ethics, both among scholars and moral philosophers. Peter L. P. Simpson provides an analytical outline of the entire work together with summaries (...) of each individual section, making the overall structure and detailed argument clear. His translation and explanatory notes include the common books that the "Eudemian" "Ethics" shares with the "Nicomachean." This translation contains renderings of words and phrases, and proposals for emending the text that differ from what other translators and scholars have adopted. This translation is literal, without expansion or paraphrase, and yet also readable. A readable but literal translation is necessary because in the "Eudemian Ethics," more than usual in Aristotle's writings, the logic of the argumentation can turn on the peculiar wording or order. Simpson explains the argumentation where necessary in notes and separate explanatory comments. This book is a fresh, twenty-first-century rendition of the work of one of the most eminent philosophers of all time. (shrink)

In this follow up to The Eudemian Ethics of Aristotle, Peter L. P. Simpson centers his attention on the basics of Aristotelian moral doctrine as found in the Great Ethics: the definition of happiness, the nature and kind of the virtues, pleasure, and friendship. This work's authenticity is disputed, but Simpson argues that all the evidence favors it. Unlike the Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics, Aristotle wrote the Great Ethics for a popular audience. It gives us insight less (...) into Aristotle the theoretician than into Aristotle the pedagogue. For this reason, the Great Ethics has distinct advantages as an introduction to Aristotelian ethical thinking: it is simpler and clearer in its argumentation, matters such as the intellectual virtues are made suitably secondary to the practical focus, the moral virtues come through with a pleasing directness, and the work's syllogistic formalism gives it a transparency and accessibility that the other Ethics typically lack. Arius' Epitome, which relies heavily on this work, helps confirm its value and authenticity. Because the Great Ethics is generally neglected by scholars, less has been done to clear up its obscurities or to expose its structure. But to ignore it is to lose another and more instructive way of approaching and appreciating Aristotle's teaching. The translation is prefaced by an analytic outline of the whole, and the several sections of it are prefaced by brief summaries. The commentary supplies fuller descriptions and analyses, sorting out puzzles, removing misunderstandings, and resolving doubts of meaning and intention. This book is a fresh rendition of the work of the preeminent philosopher of all time. (shrink)

The first sentence of NE I.2 has roughly the form: "If A [there is a universal end] and B, then D [this end will be the best good]". According to some commentators, Aristotle uses B to infer A; but then the sentence is fallacious. According to other commentators, Aristotle does not use B ; but then the sentence is bizarre. Contrary to both sets of commentators, I suggest that Aristotle uses B together with A to infer validly (...) that there is a non-instrumental – and thus unique – universal end. On this interpretation the above two problems disappear, but a subtler problem emerges: not-B does not entail C. (shrink)

Aristotle's Ethica Eudemia Book 2 Chapter 2 contains, at lines 1220b10–11, a well-known crux in the phrase ἐν τοῖς ἀπηλλαγμένοις. The context makes clear that Aristotle is using this phrase to refer to some writing or other, but scholars have been puzzled both about what the phrase means and what writing it refers to.

Until the last years of his life, Charles Darwin had actually never read Aristotle. The sole reference he makes to his naturalist forebear in _On the Origin of Species_ came in an addition to the fourth edition, published in 1866, in which he mistakenly refers to Aristotle’s summation of Empedocles’ position at _Physica_ II 8, as Aristotle’s own, and notes that ‘we see here the principle of natural selection shadowed forth’ (while disputing the specific scientific point (...) class='Hi'>Aristotle – though actually Empedocles – was supposedly making). So when his friend William Ogle, a minor scientist and physician, and an evangelist Christian, published a translation of Aristotle’s _De partibus animalium_ in 1882 and sent a copy to Darwin, he was able to declare that he felt “some self-importance in thus being a kind of formal introducer of the father of Naturalists [Aristotle] to his great modern successor [Darwin].” Ogle, who despite his religious inclinations was nevertheless a strong proponent of Darwin’s theories, did not agree with Aristotle’s scientific theories – not least because Aristotle’s teleological model of animal development, which had been adopted as a model by many post-classical Christian scientists and theologians for centuries, was dealt a serious blow by Darwin’s theory of natural selection. So it is perhaps surprising to see Ogle produce a translation of one of Aristotle’s major biological treatises. By looking at key passages of Aristotle and Ogle’s translation, this paper will examine the reasons for Ogle’s curious choice to publish his work, setting it into the wider scientific, and Darwinian, context of late-nineteenth century Britain, and explaining how Aristotle the teleologist was used by Ogle to re-enforce Darwin’s position as a modern natural historian. (shrink)

This article is an attempt to break down Aristotle’s arguments in favour of slavery into what I take to be their constituent premises and conclusions, to set these out schematically in syllogistic form, and to display both how each of the arguments works on its own and how all of them fit together to form one overarching argument. The purpose of this exercise is to make as evident as possible the structure, coherence, and validity of Aristotle’s reasoning. This (...) is something that is lacking in scholarly treatments of Aristotle on slavery, few of which make a serious attempt to engage with the details of Aristotle’s text.My conclusion is that Aristotle’s argument is not only valid but, on the assumption of his virtue theory, sound as well. (shrink)

This paper seeks to defend the Aristotelian idea that the concern of ethics is health of the soul; and that this consists in reasonableness/virtue.

The doctrine which needs clarification may be put several ways: "Modern" science, unlike Aristotelian science, does not appeal to "occult powers"; or, the doctrine of final causes is occult and unscientific; or, while modern science, in establishing laws, "explains," Aristotelian science does not. More narrowly, two separate though related claims are being made: Aristotelian science is occult. This charge is leveled at final causes and Aristotelian "powers." Aristotelian science does not explain. This charge is typified by Moliere's famous jibe at (...) "dormitive power." In order to clear away the truths from the half-truths, I will defend the following points. (shrink)

Dealing with the metaphysical foundations of modern physical science, this book demonstrates that not only is classical metaphysics not in conflict with the principles of modern experimental science but that, when analogously transferred to the different divisions of modern science, the metaphysical principle of unity makes intelligible all the laws of modern science. This revolutionary book provides the means for reestablishing the unity of science by interpreting the whole of modern experimental science from the perspective of an analogous transfer of (...) the metaphysical principle of unity rather than in terms of efficient causality. (shrink)

Aristotle claims that narrative can depict virtue and vice in particular cases, and that literature's moral meanings are not subject to philosophical paraphrase. He distrusts generalization in ethics, asserting that valid judgments rest on the perception of particulars. But this position is itself an unprovable generalization. If philosophy cannot prove the superiority of narrative over moral theory, perhaps literature can show it. In "Lolita", Nabokov reveals the moral hazards of theory while depicting one man's profound evil. Thus "Lolita" is (...) an illuminating example of pure Aristotelian fiction that serves a moral function without recourse to theory. (shrink)

In the Aristotelian corpus of writings as it has come down to us, there are four works specifically on ethics: the Nicomachean ethics, the Eudemian ethics, the Magna moralia ( or Great ethics) and the short On virtues and vices. Scholars are now agreed that the first two are genuinely by Aristotle and most also believe that the Nicomachean is the later and better of the two. About the Magna moralia, there is still a division of opinion, though probably (...) most scholars hold that it is not genuine, Those who hold it is genuine suppose it to be an early work or a redaction of an early work made by a later Peripatetic. As for On virtues and vices almost everyone holds it to be a spurious work written some two centuries after Aristotle's death. However the arguments scholars give for these opinions are entirely unconvincing. In fact, they beg the question by assuming the conclusion in order to prove the conclusion. My own contention is that all the hard evidence we have compels us to conclude that all of these works are definitely by Aristotle but that they dffer not by time of writing, as scholars universally suppose, but by audience and purpose. In brief, the Nicormachean and Eudemian ethics are writings internal to Aristotle's School with the Nicomachen being directed to legislators and the Eudemian to philosophers. The Magna moralia ls an exoteric work meant for those outside the school. On virtues and vices is a collection of endoxa, or common and received opinions about virtues, perhaps meant as a handbook for young students but also for use in philosophical analysis. It is almost certainly referred to as such by a cryptic remark in the Eudemian ethics. (shrink)

While Aristotle’s and St. Thomas’s teachings about economics are often ridiculed today, this article argues that actually what they had to say about this issue, especially about the nature of sound currency, backed up by force of law, is quite profound. According to both of them, sound money plays an essential role in the preserving commutative justice within States. By so doing, it preserves communication between talented people who make qualitatively unequal contributions to a State’s continued existence and welfare.

Aristotle's Ethica Eudemia and Ethica Nicomachea, as is well known and much discussed, contain three books in common. Less well known, at least until Dieter Harlfinger alerted scholars to the fact in 1971, is that some of the manuscripts of Eth. Eud. do, contrary to the then prevailing consensus, contain the text of these common books. Even less well known is that Harlfinger's discovery was anticipated some 50 years before by Walter Ashburner, who had uncovered this fact about Eth. (...) Eud. MSS in the Laurentian library of Florence. Ashburner's anticipation of Harlfinger, however, is not the real value of his article. Its value rather is that it contains collations of readings for the common books, and thereby gives us an excellent resource for examining the text of the common books as this text is contained in exclusively Eth. Eud. MSS. The Eth. Eud. tradition of the common books has hitherto received little attention. Modern editions of Eth. Eud. do not include these books, and editions of Eth. Nic. have other MSS for the purpose. Ashburner's collations are the more valuable because they are taken from the one MS that, in Harlfinger's learned stemma, appears as the archetype for all the rest. (shrink)

Journal Name: Apeiron Issue: Ahead of print.

MORAL PHILOSOPHY HAS LONG BEEN DOMINATED by two basic theories, Kantianism or deontology on the one hand, and utilitarianism or consequentialism on the other. Increasing dissatisfaction with these theories and their variants has led in recent years to the emergence of a different theory, the theory of virtue ethics. According to virtue ethics, what is primary for ethics is not, as deontologists and utilitarians hold, the judgment of acts or their consequences, but the judgment of agents. The good person is (...) the fundamental category for moral philosophy, and the good person is the person of good character, the person who possesses moral virtue. (shrink)

The European ethos can be characterized in two different modes. On the one hand the European ethos has its origin in the radical formula of Socrates that acting unjustly is in every respect bad and that even suffering injustice is better than that. In this perspective the good life in a Socratic signification is the self-withdrawal of mere social acting in the sense of being socially successful. But because this origin of the European ethos is a “dynamite for civil society” (...) we have to refer to Aristotle and his concept of ethics. There, on the other hand, we have to notice the habits and customs as a balance of the radical Socratic beginning. Considering these two origins of ethics we can recognize that moral austerity and ethical moderation are both two traditions of the European ethos and politics without being an alternative. For only the unity of these origins can demonstrate the universal sense of the European humanism. (shrink)

This volume brings together twelve essays exploring the history of theories of definition and essence in Western philosophy from Aristotle to Kant. Definition and essence have been central to philosophical theorising since antiquity and remain so to this day. This volume presents a series of explorations of key authors and themes connected by a common set of questions: What are definitions and essences? What are the connections between them? What are their logical and metaphysical properties? What sorts of things (...) have definitions and essences and what sorts of things do not? What functions do definitions and essences serve in the physical, mathematical, and human sciences? How, if at all, can we come to know them? This volume shows that answering these questions allows us to see in a new light key figures and movements in the history of Western thought. The volume's broad historical sweep also facilitates comparisons between different figures. And it reveals important connections between different subfields of philosophy as these were developed over the centuries - logic, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, and natural philosophy among them. Definition and Essence from Aristotle to Kant will be of interest to scholars and graduate students working in the history of philosophy, history of logic, history of mathematics, epistemology, and metaphysics. (shrink)

The so-called "Theology of Aristotle" is a translation of the Enneads of Plotinus, the most important representative of late ancient Platonism. It was produced in the 9th century CE within the circle of al-Kindī, one of the most important groups for the early reception of Greek thought in Arabic. In part because the "Theology" was erroneously transmitted under Aristotle's authorship, it became the single most important conduit by which Neoplatonism reached the Islamic world. It is referred to by (...) such thinkers as al-Fārābī, in an attempt to demonstrate the agreement between Platonism and Aristotelianism, Avicenna, who wrote a set of comments on the text, and later on thinkers of Safavid Persia including Mullā Ṣadrā. Yet the "Theology" is not just a translation. It may in fact more accurately be described as a creative paraphrase, which takes frequent liberties with the source text and even includes whole paragraphs' worth of new material. Adamson's book offers a philosophical interpretation of the changes introduced in the Arabic version. It is argued that these changes were in part intended to show the relevance of Plotinus' thought for contemporary Islamic culture, for instance by connecting the Neoplatonist theory of the First Principle to theological disputes within Islam over the status of God's attributes. At the same time the paraphrase reflects a tendency to harmonize the various strands of Greek thought, so that a critique by Plotinus of Aristotle's theory of the soul is subtly changed into a defense of Aristotle's theory against a possible misinterpretation. The upshot, or so Adamson argues, is that the "Theology" needs to be read as an original philosophical work in its own right, and understood within the context of the ʿAbbāsid era. (shrink)

This study draws attention to the ordering of matter and form argued for in Aristotle’s Physics II, 8 (199a30–32). This argument for hylomorphic teleology relies on the presentation of nature earlier in Physics II, 1. In this way, it highlights the connections between chapter one’s account of nature as matter and form and chapter eight’s defense of final causality. Grounding final causality in the principles of nature reveals its central importance for Aristotle’s view of nature. To clarify the (...) meaning of hylomorphic teleology I contrast my interpretation of Aristotle with that of Wolfgang Wieland regarding the scope and foundation of the final cause, countering his claim that chance and universal final causality are mutually exclusive. I contend that the presentation of teleology in chapter eight supports a diverse interpretation of the final cause, one that admits chance events while not sacrificing the intrinsic ordering of matter to form. (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 book is a guide to the poetics of the two Greek fountainheads of Western literary theory. Part I traces the development of Plato's great themes of inspiration and imitation but makes no attempt to reduce his disparate statements to a system. Part II demonstrates that Aristotle's Poetics embodies a powerful theory of literature that answers Plato's objections to poetry as an emotionally powerful, and therefore dangerous, communication of false opinion. Originally published in 1987. A UNC Press Enduring Edition (...) -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value. (shrink)

This study, unique of its kind, asks how slavery was viewed by the leading spokesmen of Greece and Rome. There was no movement for abolition in these societies, nor a vigorous debate, such as occurred in antebellum America, but this does not imply that slavery was accepted without question. Dr Garnsey draws on a wide range of sources, pagan, Jewish and Christian, over ten centuries, to challenge the common assumption of passive acquiescence in slavery, and the associated view that, (...) class='Hi'>Aristotle apart, there was no systematic thought on slavery. The work contains both a typology of attitudes to slavery ranging from critiques to justifications, and paired case-studies of leading theorists of slavery, Aristotle and the Stoics, Philo and Paul, Ambrose and Augustine. A final chapter considers the use of slavery as a metaphor in the Church Fathers. (shrink)