Tiberiu Popa - Aristotle on Teleology - Journal of the History of Philosophy 45:2 Journal of the History of Philosophy 45.2 323-324 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Tiberiu Popa Butler University Monte Ransome Johnson. Aristotle on Teleology. Oxford Aristotle Studies. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005. Pp. xi + 339 pp. Cloth, $74.00. Teleology is one of the most extensively studied topics in Aristotle's philosophy. It is all the more impressive that Monte Ransome Johnson has been able (...) to put together such a comprehensive, lucid, and often original account of what we would call Aristotle's teleology, or final causation, and what the Stagirite would have called simply "that for the sake of which." Johnson starts.. (shrink)

A potentially illuminating aspect of Aristotle’s study of material properties that has been explored far less systematically and comprehensively than composition is his reliance on structural characteristics that are imperceptibly small, but presumably inferable, if not with certainty, at least with a high degree of confidence. This article is meant to elucidate that aspect and to answer three main questions: What is Aristotle’s general explanatory strategy when it comes to the relation between capacities and microstructures? How does he refine certain (...) elements of his explanations, e.g., with respect to specific subtypes of structures and their interaction with the environment? And to what extent could Aristotle’s appeal to microstructures be relevant to debates in contemporary metaphysics and philosophy of science? (shrink)

The three articles gathered in this forum explore three complementary aspects of Aristotle’s “chemical treatise,” Meteorology IV. The emphasis is on significant ways in which his philosophy of science, metaphysics, and natural philosophy are put into practice in the context of his study of organic and inorganic uniform bodies.

This study aims to clarify the role played by higher order dispositions in the context of the explanatory method in Regimen I and of the approach to dietetics in Regimen as a whole. My main claim is that there are two concomitant directions involved in the inquiry carried out in Chaps 25–36 of Regimen I: there is an inferential and revelatory move from premises about complex dispositions to the ‘invisible’, that is, to the particular composition of one's body ; and (...) there is a causal-explanatory move, based on such inferences, from the powers of elemental varieties and of their combinations to the resulting higher level dispositions. (shrink)

This article explores the main aspects of Aristotle’s scientific method in Meteorology IV. Dispositional properties such as solidifiability or combustibility play a dominant role in Meteor. IV (a) in virtue of their central place in the generic division of homoeomers, based on successive differentiation and multiple differentiae, and (b) in virtue of their role in revealing otherwise undetectable characteristics of uniform materials (composition and physical structure). While Aristotle often starts with accounts of ingredients and their ratio (e.g., solids that contain (...) a significant amount of water are liquefiable), the natural direction of his investigation is from observations regarding dispositional properties and their manifestation to accounts of composition and microstructure. Such passages tend to be easily syllogizable, a feature that—along with the criteria that shape his method of division—argues, I believe, for the compatibility of Meteor. IV with Aristotle’s theory of scientific inquiry. The concluding sections of my article deal more succinctly with reputable opinions and final causation in Meteor. IV.1–11 and with the relation between this treatise and Aristotle’s biological corpus. (shrink)

At Yannaras and to Zizioulas there is an absolutization and idealization of otherness, which, together with freedom, are two fundamental attributes of personhood. Alterity acquires value and meaning only in relation with relational factors: love, fellowship and, also, being/nature. Due to the fact that, at Yannaras, nature denies apriori the person as otherness (the ratio between person and nature is defined under the aspect of: priority, inclusion, transcendence or conflict). S. Agouridic qualified both Zizioulas and Yannaras as “fighter against/opponent of (...) ousia” their ontology becoming personhood-ology. It may be however dangerous to submit the person to a “dictated or imposed otherness which reduces or diminishes the size of the identity (the common nature of people). In a conception about intersubjectivity Other is more important than Ego and dominate it, and “the dialogically element and reciprocity, which are being inherent to the intersubjectivity and to the communion between people, are inevitably reduced”. In reply to a “theology of the relationship” developed through ontology’s speculations of the person was the assertion of both Lossky, as well as Panagopoulos of meta-ontological and apophatic character of the person. (shrink)

Giving justice to Maximus any philosophy wich does not include mysticism will be false as philosophy. Our metaphysics must be mystical in order to be rational. In Maximus’ doctrine, then, Christ comes not to destroy but to fulfill the metaphysics of mystery elaborated by the philosophers. For him there can be no separation between philosophy and theology, or between natural and revealed theology. Thereby, Christology and liturgical mysticism are not additional to a neoplatonic, aristotelian, and other methaphysics. Maximus concern was (...) to continue, not the philosophical tradition of the Aristotelian commentators, but the theological one of the Fathers. He was not an Aristotelian commentator himself. The union and distinction are basic logical concepts in Maximus’ thinking, but the Chalcedonian logic is the application of these concepts. Only in this way one can talk about Christianization of aristotelian logic. St. Maximus the Confessor synthesized Aristotelianism influences with those of Platonism in order to exceed the daring speculations of cosmology origeniene. He had an extraordinary ability to combine metaphysical requirements with the effort of defining the faith dogma, and the monastic experiences with the depth thinking, succeeding to propose a new conception in which converge all cultural and religious influences. This study is analyzing the relationship between logoi and energeia (the intentional or “logical” energeia and the ontology of divine energy as ontological “logic”) within the maximian cosmology, by referring to the palamite theology. The concept of logoi for St. Maximus play a role similar in many respects to that of energy (energeiai) in Cappadocian Fathers, but the functional similarity it should not lead to the identification rationales with the energies. (shrink)

Review on Kieran McGroarty, Plotinus on Eudaimonia: A Commentary on Ennead I.4, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006.

Economic activity and reflection should be Holotropic, that is aiming at unity, instead of overspecialized approaches. A cosmic awareness is needed, along a radical revision and reformulation of human nature and of reality. In the modern era, the Hylotropic, matter oriented movement prevailed, imposing a coarser materiality and a marked spiritual devolution. This is how it reached this form of economy, based on selfishness, mercantilism and highly pecuniary greedy interest, a highly financialized economy and its dominance over the other social (...) disciplines, over the behaviour and human life in general. It seems we are at the end of such a period and a new holotropic era is to come. (shrink)

Today there is a fruitful dispute between secularists and those who argue the compatibility between Christianity, with its religious precepts and intrinsic system of ethical values, and the liberal democracy. The second group is however hopelessly wrong, as much as the first. This endeavor is epistemologically wrong and the argument is pretty simple. The institutions of divine right, such as the Church or family, shall be subject to the single principle or hierarchy of being, that goes beyond the narrow human (...) consciousness and action. From this perspective, these institutions may be called undemocratic or they do not respect the ideology of inalienable human rights, as formulated at the present time. (shrink)

It is customarily assumed that paracomplete and paraconsistent solutions to liar paradoxes require a logical system weaker than classical logic. That is, if a logic is not fragile to liar paradoxes, it must be logically weaker than classical logic. Defenders of classical logic argue that the losses of weakening it outweigh the gains. Advocates of paracomplete and paraconsistent solutions disagree. We articulate the notion of fragility with respect to the liar paradox and show that it can be disentangled from logical (...) strength. Strength and resilience to paradox do not force a trade-off with respect to liars: there can be logics which are not weaker than classical logic and are solid to the liar. (shrink)

With the continual development of artificial intelligence and smart computing in recent years, quantitative approaches have become increasingly popular as an efficient modeling tool as they do not necessitate complicated mathematical models. Many nations have taken steps, such as transitioning to online schooling, to decrease the harm caused by coronaviruses. Inspired by the demand for technology in early education, the present research uses a radial basis function neural network modeling technique to predict preschool instructors’ technology usage in classes based on (...) recognized determinant characteristics of technology acceptance. In this regard, this study utilized the RBFNN approach to predict preschool teachers’ technology acceptance behavior, based on the theory of planned behavior, which states that behavioral achievement, in our case the actual technology use in class, depends on motivation, intention and ability, and behavioral control. Thus, this research design is based on an adapted version of the technology acceptance model with eight dimensions: D1. Perceived usefulness, D2. Perceived ease of use, D3. Perceived enjoyment, D4. Intention to use, D5. Actual use, D6. Compatibility, D7. Attitude, and D8. Self-efficacy. According to the TAM, actual usage is significantly predicted by the other seven dimensions used in this research. Instead of using the classical multiple linear regression statistical processing of data, we opted for a NN based on the RBF approach to predict the actual usage behavior. This study included 182 preschool teachers who were randomly chosen from a project-based national preschool teacher training program and who responded to our online questionnaire. After designing the RBF function with the actual usage as an output variable and the other seven dimensions as input variables, in the model summary, we obtained in the training sample a sum of squares error of 37.5 and a percent of incorrect predictions of 43.3%. In the testing sample, we obtained a sum of squares error of 14.88 and a percent of incorrect predictions of 37%. Thus, we can conclude that 63% of the classified data are correctly assigned to the models’ dependent variable, i.e., actual technology use, which is a significant rate of correct predictions in the testing sample. This high significant percentage of correct classification represents an important result, mainly because this is the first study to apply RBFNN’s prediction on psychological data, opening up a new interdisciplinary field of research. (shrink)

Presents a plethora of approaches to developing human potential in areas not conventionally addressed. Organized in two parts, this international collection of essays provides viable educational alternatives to those currently holding sway in an era of high-stakes accountability.

Aristotle has traditionally been cast as the arch-enemy of all things mechanistic. Given the dichotomy long thought to exist between mechanistic and teleological schools of thought, there is a satisfying irony in discovering veins of apparently ‘mechanistic’ thought within the work of the definitive teleologist. Several waves of scholarship in the past century have argued, from different angles, for mechanistic interpretations of Aristotle’s natural philosophy. The present generation is no exception: in the last decade, Jean De Groot, Monte Johnson, and (...) Tiberiu Popa have variously argued that a mechanistic vein can be found in Aristotle’s work, despite his undeniable teleological credentials. This paper explores the assumptions—some of them open to question—that accompany such advocacy. It will urge some terminological refinements, and turn a skeptical lens on some aspects of these projects. Nonetheless, it will stress that they open promising lines of inquiry, avoiding some of the limitations of earlier ventures into this territory. (shrink)