This volume of essays explores major connected themes in Aristotle's metaphysics, philosophy of nature, and ethics, especially themes related to essence, definition, teleology, activity, potentiality, and the highest good. The volume is united by the belief that all aspects of Aristotle's work need to be studied together if any one of the areas of thought is to be fully understood. Many of the papers were contributions to a conference at the University of Pittsburgh entitled 'Being, Nature, and Life in Aristotle', (...) to honor Professor Allan Gotthelf's many contributions to the field of ancient philosophy; a few are contributions from those who were invited but could not attend. The contributors, all longstanding friends of Professor Gotthelf, are among the most accomplished scholars in the field of ancient philosophy today. (shrink)

This essay argues that aristotle's doctrine of nominal definition is his semantic theory for natural-Kind terms. It offers a new interpretation of that doctrine. On this interpretation nominal definitions are initial working theoretical accounts of natural kinds which serve as starting points for scientific inquiry. As such, Nominal definitions have existential import. They make an implicit reference to the most familiar actual instances of the kinds they define and they define the essences of those kinds by reference to those instances. (...) Nominal definitions are, Thus, Accounts of real essences as much as real definitions. They are initial incomplete accounts of such essences and it is as such that they explicate the meanings of (natural-Kind) terms. (shrink)

There are three main views of the development of Plato’s distinction between being and becoming which have been defended in recent times. Most scholars have thought that Plato always held the same version of the distinction despite appearances to the contrary. But some who have taken this position have thought that Plato took the realm of being to consist of things which never change in any way, and the realm of becoming to consist of things which are never stable in (...) any way. Others have thought that Plato’s account of things in the realm of becoming was not so extreme. They have maintained that the realm of being is made up of things which never change in any way, but that the realm of becoming consists of things which constantly change while they exist in many ways. The third view belongs to those who have held that Plato did in his middle dialogues take the extreme view of becoming and the extreme version of the distinction which that entails. But later, they claim, he discovered that the distinction was incoherent. He therefore abandoned it, and the metaphysical doctrine of degrees of reality which he had based on it, altogether. (shrink)

Scholars of classical philosophy have long disputed whether Aristotle was a dialectical thinker. Most agree that Aristotle contrasts dialectical reasoning with demonstrative reasoning, where the former reasons from generally accepted opinions and the latter reasons from the true and primary. Starting with a grasp on truth, demonstration never relinquishes it. Starting with opinion, how could dialectical reasoning ever reach truth, much less the truth about first principles? Is dialectic then an exercise that reiterates the prejudices of one's times and at (...) best allows one to persuade others by appealing to these prejudices, or is it the royal road to first principles and philosophical wisdom? In From Puzzles to Principles? May Sim gathers experts to argue both these positions and offer a variety of interpretive possibilities. The contributors' thoughtful reflections on the nature and limits of dialectic should play a crucial role in Aristotelian scholarship. (shrink)

Explores different applications of Aristotle's hypothesis on the components of form, matter and pyschological states.

In Metaphysics IV.2 Aristotle assigns a very specific role to dialectic in philosophical and scientific inquiry. This role consists of the use of the special form of dialectic which he calls peirastic. This is not a new conception of, or a new role for, dialectic in philosophy and science, but one also assigned to it in the Topics and Sophistical Refutations. In the SE Aristotle lays down multiple overlapping requirements for the premises or bases for peirastic dialectical argument. These must (...) be things known by skilled practitioners of dialectic; things in fact in accord with the science or subject of the peirastic dialectical encounter in question; things known by non-experts as well as by experts in that subject, things known even by ordinary people in general; things believed by the answerer in the given peirastic encounter and things which are as noted and accredited as possible. We can see from Aristotle’s discussion and from his, and earlier, examples that all of these various requirements can be and are met by a single identifiable set of propositions, one whose use gives a special power to peirastic, one adequate to show the falsity of particular pretensions to knowledge on specific points, in science and philosophy. (shrink)

Les quatorze articles traduits dans ce volume constituent la premiere presentation d'ensemble d'une oeuvre importante dans le domaine de l'histoire de la philosophie ancienne. Ils s'etendent sur plus de vingt ans et portent tous sur ce que l'on pourrait appeler, au sens le plus large du terme, l' epistemologie aristotelicienne, en prenant epistemologie en son sens francais et non au sens que ce terme a dans le monde universitaire anglophone. Les textes ont ete ranges dans un ordre a la fois (...) systematique et pedagogique, et non dans un ordre chronologique, parce que, malgre d'inevitables changements de details, les positions adoptees par Robert Bolton sont restees fondamentalement les memes. Il est remarquable que, alors que Bolton semblait isole dans les annees 1970-1980, ses theses soient aujourd'hui au moins mieux comprises et meme, sans doute, plus largement partagees. Le merite le plus immediat de l'approche boltonienne d'Aristote, c'est de definir exactement la place de l'epistemologie aristotelicienne. Ce qui fournit un element important pour en cerner la nature. Ce faisant Bolton applique a l'Aristotelisme lui-meme l'un des traits qu'il cru deceler dans la methode d'Aristote: d'abord saisir un element de l'essence de la chose que l'on veut connaitre, comme premier pas vers la saisie de cette essence. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Notes References and Recommended Reading.

Aristotle's word for science is epistêmê, which has at least a dual use in the Greek of his day and is standardly used, in one way, as a count noun, to mean “a science.” Thus, in this usage, one can say that geometry, or phusikê, or metaphysics is epistêmê, a science. Here the term epistêmê designates a special sort of systematic body of truth or fact that may or may not have yet been discovered, or fully discovered. In Plato's Protagoras, (...) Socrates uses the term epistêmê for knowledge of the particular right moral action to perform on some specific occasion and he is followed in this use of the term by Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics VII.2. Aristotle claims that scientific principles are reached by induction. (shrink)

The nature of the real self -- Whole person and duality -- How nature is dual -- Real self and false self -- A primary certainty -- Certainty in the self -- The original cogito argument -- Overcoming representation -- The theory of right and wrong -- The defining principle -- Narrowing the definition -- The centrality of reason -- A question of proof -- Reason and intelligence -- A universal activity -- Human and animal consciousness -- Anti-spiritual assumptions -- (...) Intellect and religious ideals -- Creativity and spirituality -- The anomaly of creativity -- An archetypal view of creation -- Creativity resistant to systems -- Conforming to the divine pattern -- Happiness and the extension of time -- Happiness distinct from pleasure -- Implications for ascetic values -- Collective suffering -- Transcendence and normal experience -- The inner duality of consciousness -- The core of consciousness -- Theology and reductionism -- A radical conclusion -- The abstract and the concrete -- Common sense concreteness -- Mediation by living organisms -- Spirituality and power -- The freedom of the will -- Confusions about free will -- Free will and release from fate -- Arguments for free will -- Freedom and knowledge of truth -- The law of action and reaction -- Sources in scripture -- The causal principle and continuity -- What controls the world? -- Causality includes free will -- Choice of the lesser evil -- Apparent breaches of the law -- The insentience of the active faculties -- Cosmic reaction and judgement -- Consequences for modern religion -- Providence and fate -- Forms of cosmic order -- Providence and archetypal order -- Fate, providence, and salvation -- Fate and astrology. (shrink)

The passage in the Phaedo where Plato argues that all learning is, in some sense, recovery of knowledge which we already possess has been as much discussed as any in Plato's dialogues. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, there are many questions about the passage which have not yet been satisfactorily answered. Answers are offered here to some of the most pressing of these questions taking special account of some useful recent discussion of the passage.

Gilbert Ryle made a point of insisting that ‘philosophy is not about isms – idealism, materialism and the like – but about problems’, problems, he held, generat.

The question of idolatry -- Non-dualism and its presuppositions -- Ignotum per ignotius -- Descartes and Shankara: a revealing parallel -- Knowledge, reality, and tradition -- Body, soul, and advaita -- Dream and reality -- A debate concerning non-dualism.

This latest volume of BACAP Proceedings contains some innovative research by international scholars on Plato, Aristotle, and Sophocles. It covers such themes as Plato on the philosopher ruler, and Aristotle on essence and necessity in science. This publication has also been published in paperback, please click here for details.

We present a one per cent measurement of the cosmic distance scale from the detections of the baryon acoustic oscillations in the clustering of galaxies from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. Our results come from the Data Release 11 sample, containing nearly one million galaxies and covering approximately 8500 square degrees and the redshift range 0.2 < z < 0.7. We also compare these results with those from the publicly released (...) DR9 and DR10 samples. Assuming a concordance Λ cold dark matter cosmological model, the DR11 sample covers a volume of 13 Gpc3 and is the largest region of the Universe ever surveyed at this density. We measure the correlation function and power spectrum, including density-field reconstruction of the BAO feature. The acoustic features are detected at a significance of over 7σ in both the correlation function and power spectrum. Fitting for the position of the acoustic features measures the distance relative to the sound horizon at the drag epoch, rd, which has a value of rd,fid = 149.28 Mpc in our fiducial cosmology. We find DV = at z = 0.32 and DV = at z = 0.57. At 1.0 per cent, this latter measure is the most precise distance constraint ever obtained from a galaxy survey. Separating the clustering along and transverse to the line of sight yields measurements at z = 0.57 of DA = and H =. Our measurements of the distance scale are in good agreement with previous BAO measurements and with the predictions from cosmic microwave background data for a spatially flat CDM model with a cosmological constant. © 2014 The Author Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. (shrink)

There has recently been a considerable amount of research into the influence of 18th century British philosophy--particularly into the thinking of David Hume on Continental philosophy and Kant. The aim of this collection is to provide some of the key texts which illustrate the impact of Kant's thought together with two important 20th century monographs on aspects of Kant's early reception and his influence on philosophical thought. Contents: Immanuel Kant in England 1793-1838 [1931] Rene Wellek 328 pp The Early Reception (...) of Kant's Thought in England 1785-1805 [1990] Giuseppe Micheli 114 pp A General and Introductory view of Professor Kant's Principles [1796] F. A. Nitsch 234 pp Text-Book to Kant [1881] (with a biographical sketch) James Hutchison Stirling 576 pp The Development from Kant to Hegel [1882] Andrew Seth 178 pp Lectures on the Philosophy of Kant [1890] Thomas Hill Green 155 pp On the Philosophy of Kant [1879] Robert Adamson 270pp A Sketch of Kant's Life and Writings [1854] H. G. Henderson 80 pp Inquisitio Philosophica [1866], An Examination on the Principles of Kant and Hamilton M. P. W. Bolton 286 pp Philosophy of the Unconditioned [1829] William Hamilton 38 pp On the Philosophy of Kant [1856] Henry L. Mansel 45 pp The aim of this collection is to provide some of the key texts which illustrate the impact of Kant's thought together with two important 20th century monographs on aspects of Kant's early reception and his influence on philosophical thought. (shrink)

This open access book is a systematic update of the philosophical and scientific foundations of the biopsychosocial model of health, disease and healthcare. First proposed by George Engel 40 years ago, the Biopsychosocial Model is much cited in healthcare settings worldwide, but has been increasingly criticised for being vague, lacking in content, and in need of reworking in the light of recent developments. The book confronts the rapid changes to psychological science, neuroscience, healthcare, and philosophy that have occurred since the (...) model was first proposed and addresses key issues such as the model’s scientific basis, clinical utility, and philosophical coherence. The authors conceptualise biology and the psychosocial as in the same ontological space, interlinked by systems of communication-based regulatory control which constitute a new kind of causation. These are distinguished from physical and chemical laws, most clearly because they can break down, thus providing the basis for difference between health and disease. This work offers an urgent update to the model’s scientific and philosophical foundations, providing a new and coherent account of causal interactions between the biological, the psychological and social. (shrink)