In order to develop a hermeneutic-phenomenological analysis of testimony, this essay will first argue that testimony is “said in many ways” without being homonymous and that contemporary epistemological approaches to testimony are not capable of accounting for all paradigmatic forms of testimony. Second, it is argued, following and extending the work of Paul Ricoeur, that by emphasizing the sense of engagement or Bezogenheit as a basic characteristic of testimony, we may find another approach to testimony that offers a phenomenological alternative (...) to the observational model of witnessing and the accompanying conception of testimony as report. Third, this approach is further developed and analyzed in terms of the four elements of testimony, namely, subject matter, witness, act of testifying, and addressee. (shrink)

IntroductionThis essay is divided into two distinct parts.In the first I shall explore the complex way in which Carl Schmitt’s thought was split three ways: between a Catholic universalism that extends the “law of humanity” to the whole of the globe; a modern defense of the normativity of the absolutely sovereign nation-state; and finally a stress upon the primacy of a more limited civilizational landmass, smaller than that of the whole planet but larger than that of the state. In this (...) third case, it is actually “empire“ that is covertly to the fore and supremely the Western land-based empire that had once been Christendom. (shrink)

이 논문은 ‘플라톤이 『티마이오스』에서 펼친 자연철학에서 아리스토텔레스는 무엇을 배웠나’라는 물음에 대한 하나의 대답이다. 우리는 아리스토텔레스가 『생성소멸론』에서 물질의 기본 단위로 제시한 네 종류의 요소들에 관한 이론의 경우를 주로 살펴볼 것이다. 아리스토텔레스에 따르면, 달의 천구 아래에 펼쳐진 우리의 감각대상의 세계인 ‘월하계’의 요소들은 영원한 운동과 변화 속에 있는 것이 사실이다. 그러나 질료-형상의 복합체인 구체적 개별자로서의 실체와는 다르지만, 그럼에도 불구하고 요소들은 내부 성격쌍의 역동적인 상호 역할, 즉 토대가 되는 “쉼볼론”(symbolon)의 질료 역할과 그 위에서 주고받는 두 대립자의 형상 역할로 인하여 최종적인 “실체적 상태”로 불릴 수 (...) 있으며 따라서 물질적 사물들의 굳건한 토대가 된다. 뤽 브리송은 아리스토텔레스가 플라톤의 『티마이오스』에 나타나는 자리(chōra) 개념에 대해 비판한 것에 반대하면서, 『자연학』 제4권의 한 구절에서 발견한 “제일 질료”를 공격한다. 즉, 그는 아리스토텔레스가 플라톤의 자리(chōra) 개념을 비판하고 있지만 아리스토텔레스의 제일 질료 개념은 오히려 그 자리 개념과 유사한 것이라고 반격하고 있다. 그런데 브리송의 해석을 따라 가면, 궁극적인 실체로서 사물들의 변화의 계열에서 제일의 기체가 되는 것은 요소들이 아니라 요소들의 자리들이 될 것으로 보인다. 사실 전통적인 입장에 서 있는 해석들은 요소 변환에 관한 아리스토텔레스의 이론에서 “쉼볼론”이라는 중요한 개념을 간과하고 있다. 만일 브리송이 요소 이론의 맥락에서 ‘기체’로서의 질료라는 아리스토텔레스의 개념을 공격하기를 원했다면, 그는 다름 아닌 “쉼볼론”을 겨냥했어야 했다. 왜냐하면 요소 변환에서 ‘기체’의 역할을 하는 것은 변환에 임한 두 요소의 공통 성격인 이 “쉼볼론”이지 요소들의 텅빈 '자리'가 아니기 때문이다. 그리고 그가 “쉼볼론”을 겨냥했다면, 그것이 두 요소의 상호 변환에서 공통의 ‘기체’ 역할을 하지만, 이것이 “궁극적인 물체적 수용자”도 아니고, “순수 가능태”로서의 제일 질료도 아니라는 사실이 드러날 것이며, 따라서 그의 반론은 과녁을 잃게 될 것이다. (shrink)

In Commit to Win, Heidi Reeder, PhD, unpacks over forty years of research by psychologists and economists to show that the key to reaching any goal, whether it' to hit the gym more often or to finally quit that dead-end job, isn' motivation, willpower, or determination. It' commitment. Busting the myths most of us believe about commitment, Reeder shows that it all comes down to four variables: treasures, troubles, contributions, and choices. Together, these variables make up a formula that (...) not only measures how committed we are, but also shows which factors we can change to get our commitment level in sync with what we want to do. (shrink)

The standing screens on the title is the oldest work extant of KANO Motonobu's work as folding screens of thick colored flowers and birds with golden background. This thesis designates that the scenery and the motif of the work are in correspondence with both descriptions of the scenery of Pure Land in several Buddhist scriptures and the design of actual gardens. Firstly, a peacock on the right hand screen is focused to indicate the bird connotes the elements of auspicious (...) birds in Buddhism, such as Mahamayuri and Kalavinka.Secondly, the elements of the scenery in the work, such as the four seasons at the same time ∼ the depiction of perpetuity ∼ and the existence of a pond, are identified with the description of Pure Land in Kwan-mu-liang-shou-ching and Ta-wuliang-shou-ching. These elements of the garden in the work are placed similarly to the Pure Land style gardens, which are illustrated in "Center and Surrounds of Kyoto" 's. In consideration of the above factors, the conclusion that, in the work, KANO Motonobu succeeded to portray the ideal garden by combining the scenery of Pure Land and that of actual gardens, is drawn. (shrink)

In theCommentary on the Cratylus, Proclus puts forward an original but largely ignored interpretation of Circe as weaving life inτῷ τετραστοίχῳ. This paper argues thatτὸ τετράστοιχονrefers not to the four genera but to the four elements. Thus what the enchantress weaves are the elemental garments that weigh the soul down to the earthly realm of mortals.

The four-valued semantics of Belnap–Dunn logic, consisting of the truth values True, False, Neither, and Both, gives rise to several nonclassical logics depending on which feature of propositions we wish to preserve: truth, nonfalsity, or exact truth. Interpreting equality of truth values in this semantics as material equivalence of propositions, we can moreover see the equational consequence relation of this four-element algebra as a logic of material equivalence. In this paper, we axiomatize all combinations of these four-valued (...) logics, for example, the logic of truth and exact truth or the logic of truth and material equivalence. These combined systems are consequence relations which allow us to express implications involving more than one of these features of propositions. (shrink)

_Explores the ancient and perennial notion of the four elements as environmental ideas._.

There is considerable dispute in the literature as to how much, in Aristotle's universe, living things and artifacts really have in common. To what extent is the relation between form and matter in living things comparable to the relation between form and matter in artifacts? Aristotle no doubt employs artifact-analogies rather frequently in describing the workings of living things. But where does the usefulness of these analogies reach its limits? In this paper, I argue that Aristotle's artifact-analogies are frequently over-extended (...) in such a way that important asymmetries between living things and artifacts are lost in the process. One such asymmetry of crucial importance is the relation between form and matter. Although form and matter in living organisms and artifacts alike are related via hypothetical necessity, it does not apply to both in the same way. I consider particular examples of body-parts and argue that, in each case, a particular kind of matter is picked out by hypothetical necessity. In this way, living things contrast with artifacts which are related via hypothetical necessity only to a disjunction of suitable material; each member of the disjunction is related to the form in question only contingently. In the case of living things, on the other hand, Aristotle is not committed to Multiple Realizability, in contrast to what the functionalist interpretation of Aristotle has claimed. (shrink)

A sentence in Book 7 of Diogenes Laertius’s Lives states that, according to the Stoics, the four elements are “unqualified substance, i.e. matter.” Scholars have noted that this appears to conflict with the Stoics’ distinction between principles and elements. Different solutions have been proposed, from dismissing the sentence entirely to emending the text. This note proposes a new interpretation according to which the standard reading of the text can be retained.

The article describes Mieczysław Albert Krąpiec's perspective on four classic philosophical images of man and the resulting theoretical and practical implications for the nursing profession. The first three images, namely man as a set of elements, man as a soul imprisoned in the body and man as a rational animal, are regarded by Krąpiec as reductionist anthropologies and are thus inadequate for nursing. The first image reduces man to a biological element. The second one reduces man to a (...) soul and treats a body as something an obstacle in personal development. The third image absolutizes reason in man. While the body is not rejected in this image, it is viewed as an indifferent mass. The last image, which regards man as a person, is an adequate image for nursing. The exceptional character of man emphasized in this image is determined by the following personal qualities: the ability for cognition, freedom, love, religiousness, dignity, subjectivity to law and completeness. These characteristics reveal the specificity of personal being in both the body and the spirit. By viewing man as a person, a nurse discovers a wide range of possibilities of providing effective help to the patient. (shrink)

In the human cognitive economy there are four grades of epistemic involvement. Knowledge partitions into distinct sorts, each in turn subject to gradations. This gives a fourwise partition on ignorance, which exhibits somewhat different coinstantiation possibilities. The elements of these partitions interact with one another in complex and sometimes cognitively fruitful ways. The first grade of knowledge I call “anselmian” to echo the famous declaration credo ut intelligam, that is, “I believe in order that I may come to (...) know”. As construed here, one knows in this anselmian way that E = mc2 just in case one knows that sentence expresses a true statement, but without having to understand the proposition it expresses. Most epistemologists ignore the significance of this grade of epistemic involvement. In a second grade of epistemic involvement, knowing that E = mc2 is knowing what that sentence means and understanding the proposition it express. This is knowledge in the propositional or semantic sense, and is the dominant target of epistemological investigation. Tacit and implicit knowledge occupies another tier. A typical example would be something that someone has “known all along” but, until now, hasn’t had occasion to put her mind to it or formulate in words. TI-knowledge remains a minority interest in today’s epistemology. Operating at a fourth grade of epistemic involvement is what I call “impact”-knowledge, which is the knowledge of a matter at its deepest and most widespread. An example, to be discussed below, is the knowledge that was generated by the Wiles proof of Fermat’s last theorem. Its true importance lies not only, or even mainly, in its verification of a commonly accepted fact about numbers, but rather in its enrichment of the mathematics of elliptical curves and the promise it holds for greater advancement into the mathematical unknown. Knowledge of this fourth grade has yet to find a seat in the parliaments of epistemology. Knowledge of the anselmian sort is independent of the other three. Tacit and implicit knowledge is incompatible with anselmian and semantic knowledge but coinstantiable with impact-knowledge. Semantic knowledge is incompatible with tacit and implicit knowledge but coinstantiable with the others. Impact-knowledge is pairwise coinstantiable with the others. Below I will bring the ignorance partitions into such alignment as they have with these ones. In doing so, I’ll propose a naturalized causal response epistemology designed to give these interactive distinctions the theoretical air they need to breathe. (shrink)

Throughout religious, scientific, and humanist literature on ideas one finds categorical subdivisions that are four in number: the four corners of the Earth, the four cardinal directions, the four proteins constituting DNA, Maxwell's four equations, Toynbee's four societies, Pythagoras’ four elements of arithmetic, Pythagoras’ four elements, Hayden White's four aspects of imagination. The list is endless. From where does the “four” come? Why not five, or six, eight, or (...) nine? Andersen tracks back to the beginnings of arithmetic utilized in the architecture of conceptual thinking. He finds the answer not only in the quadration of the human body as having four sides and giving a stabilizing structure to the brain but equally in the architecture of memory. Using the slot-theory of short-term memory processing, he demonstrates how easily the four-count comes to mind and how the brain resists moving on to five. (shrink)

IntroductionAcademic integrity is the expectation that members of the academic community, including researchers, teachers, and students, to act with accuracy, honesty, fairness, responsibility, and respect. Academic integrity is an issue of critical importance to academic institutions and has been gaining increasing interest among scholars in the last few years. While contravening academic integrity is known as academic misconduct, cheating is one type of academic misconduct and is generally defined as “any action that dishonestly or unfairly violates rules of research or (...) education.Case studyThe case study presented in this paper describes the elements of academic misconduct in three Middle Eastern countries. Four categories of factors were analyzed, namely personal, cultural traits, contextual, and institutional. Moreover, a comparison of factors of misconduct is conducted in the three countries in order to examine how different learning environments and cultures can affect academic cheating. The study also investigates the role of teachers and administration system in enforcing integrity policy in educational institutes.Discussion and evaluationAn evaluation of the main causes of cheating and plagiarism among students in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan is conducted by analyzing students’ response to a 20 questions survey. The nonparametric Dunn’s statistical analysis is performed to compare the variance and frequency of factors that may affect academic integrity. The significant results are reported in terms of the Krushal F statistic and p-value < 0.05. The evaluation was a useful process that demonstrated the main factors affecting academic integrity in the three countries.ConclusionSurvey results show that the role of individual social-demographic and culture factors are significant for predicting misconduct in Saudi Arabia and Egypt but not in Jordan. Most students blamed their misconduct on laziness and willingness to achieve higher education performance. Students are more likely to cheat and plagiarize because they lack the ability or information to tackle assignments. Results illustrate that the cultural impact can be a significant factor in academic misconduct. Integrity policies and the level, at which they have been applied, have a large impact on student attitudes towards cheating and their academic misconduct. (shrink)

This article discusses four different case studies related to complex technological works that were created through international collaborations.The Exquisite Mechanism of Shivers/Ex.MechRed Dice/Des ChiffréCom↔SpaceA China of Many SensesThe article discusses elements of language, culture, technological creation and process.

This paper begins the last instalment of a six-part project correlating the key aspects of Kant’s architectonic conception of philosophy with a special version of the Chinese Book of Changes that I call the “Compound Yijing”, which arranges the 64 hexagrams (gua) into both fourfold and threefold sets. I begin by briefly summarizing the foregoing articles: although Kant and the Yijing employ different types of architectonic reasoning, the two systems can both be described in terms of three “levels” of (...) class='Hi'>elements. Starting at an unnumbered level devoid of any element (the tao or thing in itself), the system proceeds by elaborating a key fourfold distinction (or “quaternity”) on the first level, a twelvefold distinction on the second level, and twelve quaternities (grouped in four quadrants, each with a set of three quaternities) on the third level. Each set of three quaternities (i.e., each quadrant) on the third level corresponds to one of the four “faculties” of the university, as elaborated in Kant’s book, The Conflict of the Faculties. Previous papers have examined the correlations between three key quaternities that Kant defends in relation to each of three faculties (philosophy, theology, and law) and the 12 gua that correspond to that faculty in the Compound Yijing. The final step is to explore the fourth quaternity on the third level, the 12 gua corresponding to the medical faculty. The “idea of reason” in Kant’s metaphysics that guides this wing of the comparative analysis is freedom, and the ultimate purpose of this faculty of the university is to train doctors to care for people’s physical well-being, as free agents imbedded in nature. But this paper will focus only on the four gua that correspond to four basic concepts in Kant’s theory of medicine. The two quaternities in the “yin-yang” (medical) quadrant of the Compound Yijing that will be skipped here are as follows. First, Kant’s account of the idea of freedom itself, which gives rise to the area of traditional metaphysics known as rational cosmology, comes in the first Critique’s Dialectic, in the section on the Antinomy of Reason (CPR A405-567/B432- 595). There he examines four irresolvable issues: whether the world has a beginning in time; whether composite substances consist of simple parts; whether a causality of freedom operates in the natural world; and whether an absolutely necessary being exists. Later I will argue that these correspond to the quaternity consisting of gua 15, 22, 36, and 52. (shrink)

Leonard Trelawney Hobhouse is considered one of the founders of sociology as a discipline. His four books which form Principles of Sociology are published here together for the first time - representing a synthesis of the philosophical and scientific methods of social inquiry. Although very scarce, the study by Hobson and Ginsberg is still regarded as the most comprehensive account of Hobhouse's life and works. There is also a memoir by Hobson and a selection of Hobhouse's otherwise inaccessible writings.

The purpose of this article is to synthesize four major elements of aesthetic experience that have previously appeared isolated whenever an attempt at conceptualization is made. These four elements are: Immanuel Kant’s disinterested pleasure, Robin G. Collingwood’s emotional expressionism, the present writer’s redemptive emotional experience, and, lastly, Plato’s concept of Beauty. By taking these four abstracted elements as the bedrock for genuine aesthetic experience, this article aims to clarify the proper role of art as (...) distinct from philosophy and intellectualization. Rather than a medium conducive to intellectual understanding, it is argued that the sphere these four elements of aesthetic experience demarcate is one in which art leads to an emotional understanding that transforms the human condition and it imbues it with new meaning only to be found in a moment of aesthetic experience. (shrink)

The Fifth Element (1997) is a French science-fiction film in English, directed and co-written by Luc Besson. The title and the plot of the film refer to a central notion of Greek philosophy, that is, pemptousia, or quintessence. Pre-Socratic philosophers such as Thales, Anaxagoras, Anaximenes and others, were convinced that all natural beings – in fact, nature itself – consist in four primary imperishable elements or essences (ousiai), i.e., fire, earth, water, and air. To these four, Aristotle (...) added aether, a fifth essence (pemptousia). The introduction of aether gave birth to a great tradition in late Antique and Medieval philosophy, and eventually it came to signify not an additional primary element, but the core-essence of all beings, their fundamental ontological structure. Besson’s film draws its inspiration on this philosophical tradition but its cinematographic rendering of the concept of Quintessence is typical of the contemporaneous views on the core characteristics of matters. The modernity that stimulates the film is equally anti-transcendentalist and anti-essentialist. Thus, the fifth element of the film is existentially personified and genderized making the traditional philosophical significance of the term to be adjusted by modernity in an immanent and temporal context where in addition aesthetics plays a crucial role. (shrink)

ABSTRACT‘Excellence’ underpins debates within sports ethics from the nature of sport to the permissibility of doping. Despite the central role that excellence occupies in ethical reasoning about sport, it has garnered more support than scrutiny in the literature. Little has been said about how this value can be advanced or undermined. This paper addresses that lacuna by demonstrating that excellence has a complexity that has previously gone unnoticed. Specifically, excellence has four distinct elements: the ‘cluster of excellence’, the (...) ‘quantum of excellence’, the ‘clarity of excellence’, and the ‘balance of excellence’. Correspondingly, excellence can be advanced or undermined in any of four ways. This analysis yields the ‘Excellence Principle’ – a principle that provides a desideratum for any broad internalist (i.e. interpretivist) theory of sport and a normative framework with which to undertake excellence-based reasoning in sports ethics. (shrink)

Philosophy has four forms: wonder, faith, doubt and scepticism. These are not separate categories, but separate ideal possibilities. Modern academic philosophy has fallen, for several centuries, into an error: which is the error of supposing that philosophy is only what I call doubt. Philosophy may be doubt: indeed, it is part of my argument that this is undeniably one element of, or one possibility in, philosophy; but doubt is only one of four points of the compass. In this (...) essay I indicate the nature of each point of the compass as it has been found in the history of philosophy. (shrink)

The perception created by the combination of olfaction and taste is called flavor.What is the number of tastes or flavors we have? Is it five, as most Chinese believe? None, as the ancient Taoists asserted? Four, as Western science traditionally claims? Or is it six or seven or even fourteen? World cuisines are at odds on this issue, and I shall briefly explore here their reasons for their numbers. There is a consensus among some of the elements that (...) tells us something about the human makeup or constitution. The other elements reveal social and cultural differences and varying environmental conditions.The doctrine of the five flavors dates to the Xia Dynasty (c. twenty-first to sixteenth centuries BCE), where .. (shrink)

In the present article, we aimed at describing the diagnostic process in Psychiatry through a phenomenological perspective. We have identified 4 core concepts which may represent the joints of a phenomenologically oriented diagnosis. The "tightrope walking" attitude refers to the psychiatrist's ability to swing between 2 different and sometimes contrasting tendencies (e.g., engagement and disengagement). The "holistic experience" includes all those intuitive, nonverbal, and pre-thematic elements that emerge in the early stages of the clinical encounter as an emanation of (...) the atmospheric quality of the intersubjective space. The "co-construction of symptoms" regards the hermeneutic process behind psychiatric symptoms, involving both the patient as a self-interpreting agent and the clinician as a translator of his/her experience. Finally, by the "evolving typification" we mean that the closer the relationship becomes with the patient, the more specific and nuanced becomes the typification behind psychiatric diagnosis. Each of these concepts will be accompanied by an extract from a clinical case deriving from one of the authors' most recent clinical experiences. (shrink)

What follows are the introductory remarks and a series of questions that were raised for a discussion about what Hegel is doing in the paragraphs 669-71 of the Phenomenology of Spirit, with reference back to paragraphs 444 and 650-5. Broadly speaking, the issues concern the place and the nature of that self-consciousness that Hegel describes as the universal and mediating element in which spirit comes to itself. I also ask about the applicability of his dialectic of forgiveness to a particular (...) situation today. (shrink)

Providing the most thorough coverage available in one volume, this comprehensive, broadly based collection offers a wide variety of selections in four major genres, and also includes a section on film. Each of the five sections contains a detailed critical introduction to each form, brief biographies of the authors, and a clear, concise editorial apparatus. Updated and revised throughout, the new Fourth Edition adds essays by Margaret Mead, Russell Baker, Joan Didion, Annie Dillard, and Alice Walker; fiction by Nathaniel (...) Hawthorne, Ursula K. LeGuin, Anton Chekov, James Joyce, Katherine Mansfield, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Alice Walker, Louise Erdrich, Donald Barthelme, and James McPherson; poems by John Donne, Robert Browning, Walt Whitman, Edwin Arlington Robinson, e.e. cummings, Langston Hughes, W.H. Auden, Philip Levine, and Louise Gluck; and plays by August Wilson, Marsha Norman, Wendy Wasserstein, and Vaclav Havel. The chapter devoted to film examines the relation of film to literature and gives the complete screenplay for Citizen Kane plus close analysis of a scene from the film. With its innovative structure, comprehensive coverage, and insightful and stimulating presentation of all kinds of literature, this is an anthology readers will turn to again and again. (shrink)

Social, legal and health-care changes have created an increasing need for ethical review within end-of-life care. Multiprofessional clinical ethics committees (CECs) are increasingly supporting decision-making in hospitals and hospices. This paper reports findings from an analysis of formal summaries from CEC meetings, of one UK hospice, spanning four years. Using qualitative content analysis, five themes were identified: timeliness of decision-making, holistic care, contextual openness, values diversity and consensual understanding. The elements of an engaged clinical ethics in a hospice (...) context is not generally acknowledged nor its elements articulated. Findings from this study have the potential to explain some of the most challenging ethical problems and to contribute to their resolution. It may also guide future deliberation and raise CEC members' awareness of the recurrent issues and values of their CEC practice. (shrink)

In the following paper, I discuss the adjectival uses of the English word ‘right’, in ethical and nonethical settings. I distinguish four distinct but related uses. In the central use, which includes the typical ethical applications, what is right is what conforms to a norm, or rule. The emphasis can be on the norm itself, or on the conforming to the norm. The view I offer is not original. It is to be found in the works of T.M. Scanlon, (...) T.H. Green, R.M. Hare and W.D. Ross.1. (shrink)

In 1980, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari published what would become their most famous book: A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. The result of seven years of hard labor, this new work was intended to expand the reflection they had initiated in their first four-handed book Anti-Oedipus, published in 1972 with the same subtitle. By deepening the notions of “flow” and “desire” but going this time beyond the sole discussion of Freudianism and Marxism, it provided a completely - Philosophie (...) – Nouvel article. (shrink)

The traditional concept of prime matter – a purely potential substratum that persists through substantial change and serves to constitute the generated substance – has played a dwindling part in Aristotelian scholarship over the centuries. In medieval interpretations of Aristotle, prime matter was thought to play these two roles in all substantial changes, not only in changes at the level of the four elements. In more recent centuries, traditional prime matter was relegated only to the context of substantial (...) changes between the four elements. And in the last few decades of Aristotelian scholarship, it has become common either to downplay or even to eliminate prime matter’s role in elemental changes too. I will support the traditional concept of prime matter by showing that it aligns Aristotle’s view of elemental change with one of the central constraints on matter imposed in his Physics to a degree that cannot be achieved on the non-traditional interpretations: the need for matter to be in potentiality in a way that avoids the two problematic extremes of mere persistence, on the one hand, and destruction, on the other. This point will be supported by Aristotle’s rejection of both monism and pluralism in On Generation and Corruption. Second, I will argue that Aristotle calls for precisely the same kind of potentiality in a very different context: his critique of Anaxagoras’s view of matter in the Generation of Animals. Here the very same problematic extremes of mere persistence and destruction that plague the alternate views to traditional prime matter also plague the dominant views on the matter for animal generation. Especially since Aristotle takes living things to be paradigmatic substances, these comparisons suggest that the apparent idiosyncrasies of elemental transformation which have motivated interpreters to depart from traditional prime matter may not be so idiosyncratic after all. And if that is so, it may be that the problem lies not so much with traditional prime matter as with our assumptions about how persistence and constitution work in substantial change according to Aristotle. In the end, this line of argument opens the door to three new potential interpretations of the matter for substantial generation in Aristotle, interpretations which align with his concept of potentiality and – to varying degrees – with traditional prime matter as well. (shrink)