Although Aristotle's zoological works were known in antiquity and during the early medieval period, the scientific research program discussed and exemplified therein disappeared after Theophrastus. After some fifteen hundred years, it reappears in the work of Albert the Great who extensively explains Aristotle's conception of a scientific research program and extends Aristotle's zoological researches. Evidence of Albert's Aristotelian commentaries shows that he clearly understood animals to represent a self-contained subject-genus, that the study of this subject-genus constitutes theoretical knowledge in an (...) Aristotelian sense, that natural finality and suppositional necessity provide principles of zoological science, and that research into animals must be conducted according to a two-staged methodology of division and demonstration. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.4 (2001) 584-585 [Access article in PDF] Phillip Cary. Augustine's Invention of the Inner Self: The Legacy of a Christian Platonist. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. xvii + 214. Cloth, $45.00. In a gloss on the well-known gospel text, G. K. Chesterton noted that it is precisely because salt is unlike the foods it preserves that it is able to do (...) its distinctive work of preservation. Likewise, according to the thesis of this book, it is precisely because Augustine of Hippo invented his distinctive approach to interiority that he has done so much to preserve for the Western tradition the Platonic conception of the soul. Yet Augustine's contribution to the philosophy of the inner self is not simply one of inventio in the classical sense of a discovery of the Platonic self, it is also an innovation pointing philosophy in a new direction.Using a series of provocative images, Phillip Cary outlines the history of the idea of the private inner self in a way that highlights Augustine's distinctive contribution. He begins with Plato's Allegory of the Cave wherein the soul or self is an eye that has escaped the lower darkness to gaze upward away from itself toward the sun achieving intellectual vision. This idea is developed by Plotinus, for whom the soul is like a sphere revolving around the inner source of intelligibility at the center of things. This soul can look out toward the darkness or inward toward the intelligible light. In a further development, Augustine pictures the self as an inner palace with large courtyards open to the intelligible light of the sun such that the eye of the soul must turn inward and then upward to be enlightened. The final modern development is represented by Locke's picture of the self as a dark room where nothing but images are projected within through windows out of which the self cannot see, the intelligible light of the sun being kept out. Introducing the notion of the private inner life, Augustine is the forerunner of modern philosophy and all that has followed from the Cartesian turn. Yet Augustine is also a Platonist seeking the source of intelligibility that enlightens the inner self taking it beyond itself. This dual thesis is defended by Cary through a study of Augustine's place in the Platonic tradition of inner divinity. The task takes up the [End Page 584] first half of the book and builds on the well-known studies of Augustine's Platonism by J. J. O'Meara, R. J. O'Connell, and others. The second part of the book is devoted to Augustine's innovations of privacy and the inward-upward turn and yields some surprising discoveries that will interest the historian of philosophy.One surprise concerns Augustine's expressionist semiotics according to which signs are outward expressions of what is within. As a Platonist, however, Augustine also holds that signs signify intelligible things that nonetheless fail to be made truly intelligible by signs. The knower, then, does not grasp the intelligible thing from its being signified by the sign, but grasps the significance of a sign by knowing the intelligible thing it signifies. Thus, according to the De Doctrina Christiana, the correct interpreter of scripture is the one who already knows the spiritual things the words of scripture signify and, therefore, is not a slave to a literal interpretation of these words.Another surprise is Augustine's notion of grace as a sort of Platonic eros. Operating by attraction rather than coercion, grace is as much directed at the reason as the will. Thus, the discussions of grace as inward teaching in the anti-Pelagian works is a development of Christ, the inner teacher of the De Magistro, and Reason, the inner teacher of the Soliloquies.Yet another surprise concerns the traditional faith-reason problem. Rather than seeing faith and reason as contrasting modes of inner cognition of outward objects, Augustine associates faith with authority as external... (shrink)

El artículo estudia la apropiación que hace Agustín del argumento de Platón respecto a la existencia de un demiurgo cósmico en Timeo 27d-28c. Muestra cómo Agustín se enfrenta implícitamente a la falacia cosmogónica, haciendo algunas enmiendas al argumento de Platón, a fin de conservarlo para los teístas como modelo filosófico de los orígenes cósmicos.

During the past three decades, Aristotle studies have been significantly influenced by a series of ground-breaking investigations of the zoological works, especially the Historia animalium. As a result, contemporary Aristotle scholars have developed a clearer and more consistent interpretation of the zoology and have demonstrated its consonance with Aristotle’s logic and metaphysics. This revolution in Aristotle studies was anticipated by the medieval natural philosopher Albertus Magnus. As the first thinker since Theophrastus to pursue an Aristotelian research program in the life (...) sciences, he interpreted Aristotle’s animal histories as a series of pre-demonstrative researches preparatory to causal explanation as prescribed in the Posterior Analytics and the Topics. The medieval anticipation of these recent developments in Aristotle studies provides a compelling comparison of the interpretation of Aristotle now and then. (shrink)

During the past three decades, Aristotle studies have been significantly influenced by a series of ground-breaking investigations of the zoological works, especially the Historia animalium. As a result, contemporary Aristotle scholars have developed a clearer and more consistent interpretation of the zoology and have demonstrated its consonance with Aristotle’s logic and metaphysics. This revolution in Aristotle studies was anticipated by the medieval natural philosopher Albertus Magnus. As the first thinker since Theophrastus to pursue an Aristotelian research program in the life (...) sciences, he interpreted Aristotle’s animal histories as a series of pre-demonstrative researches preparatory to causal explanation as prescribed in the Posterior Analytics and the Topics. The medieval anticipation of these recent developments in Aristotle studies provides a compelling comparison of the interpretation of Aristotle now and then. (shrink)

During the past three decades, Aristotle studies have been significantly influenced by a series of ground-breaking investigations of the zoological works, especially the Historia animalium. As a result, contemporary Aristotle scholars have developed a clearer and more consistent interpretation of the zoology and have demonstrated its consonance with Aristotle’s logic and metaphysics. This revolution in Aristotle studies was anticipated by the medieval natural philosopher Albertus Magnus. As the first thinker since Theophrastus to pursue an Aristotelian research program in the life (...) sciences, he interpreted Aristotle’s animal histories as a series of pre-demonstrative researches preparatory to causal explanation as prescribed in the Posterior Analytics and the Topics. The medieval anticipation of these recent developments in Aristotle studies provides a compelling comparison of the interpretation of Aristotle now and then. (shrink)

Is our science of the physical world a matter of theoretical description with predictive value, or is it instead a search for the productive causes of observed phenomena? Ancient astronomers such as Ptolemy maintained the former; ancient cosmologists such as Aristotle the latter. This debate is a central theme in Albert Magnus’s thirteenth-century Aristotelian commentaries. This paper shows how Albert defended the possibility of empirical science aimed at demonstrating the causes of observed phenomena. In the course of his defense, Albert (...) identifies a specific error committed by Ptolemy concerning the subject of physical theory. The identification and correction of this error provides the basis upon which a proper metaphysical foundation for the empirical sciences can be laid. This foundation is nothing other than the recovery of the Aristotelian notion of form as the immanent intelligibility of physical natures. (shrink)

This paper is a book review of "Metaphysics from a Biological Point of View" by Stephen Boulter.

Despite his seminal role in the history of philosophy, the thirteenth century thinker Albert the Great remains little known. Prior to World War II, his massive literary output was not fully analyzed by historians largely because, as Etienne Gilson put it, of the amazing "amount of philosophical and scientific information heaped up in his writings." After the war, Albert's work began to receive more attention. By 1955, the Louvain medievalist Fernand Van Steenberghen could confidently declare that Albert was the first (...) thinker to establish "the rightful place of learning in Christianity." A decade later, James A. Weisheipl uncovered evidence of Albert's distinctively naturalistic interpretation of Aristotle in .. (shrink)

Augustine is acknowledged by Malebranche as the source of his occasionalism and he appropriates the architect analogy of Augustine’s De Genesi ad litteram. Augustine’s analogy, however, is not a move toward occasionalism, but a response to Platos claim in the Timaeus that the cosmos can be destroyed and is only preserved by divine providence. The heterological nature of the architect image for creation shows that, far from arguing for occasionalism, Augustine is concerned to avoid the cosmogonically fallacious confusion of divine (...) agency and natural cause. (shrink)

Michael W. Tkacz - Quaestiones super librum Posteriorum - Journal of the History of Philosophy 40:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.3 392-393 Book Review Quaestiones super librum Posteriorum Walter Burley. Quaestiones super librum Posteriorum. Edited by Mary Catherine Sommers. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2000. Pp. x + 214. Cloth, $34.95. In his monumental Le Système du Monde, Pierre Duhem notes that it is difficult to link the fourteenth-century scholastic Walter Burley to any particular school on account (...) of his eclecticism. Indeed, throughout much of the twentieth century, Burley has.. (shrink)

Contemporary biologists generally agree with E. O. Wilson’s claim that “reduction is the traditional instrument of scientific analysis.” This is certainly true of Michael Ruse, who has attempted to provide a Darwinian account of human scientific knowledge in terms of epigenetic rules. Such an account depends on the characterization of natural objects as the chance concatenations of material elements, making natural form an effect rather than a cause of the object. This characterization, however, can be shown to be false in (...) that it is self-refuting in its exclusion of formal cause. The retorsive argument for formal cause dialectically shows that any attempt to explain a natural object depends on the identification of form as the cause of the intelligibility of the object. It follows that Darwinian explanations of the products of human culture, such as science, cannot consistently treat form as an effect rather than a cause. (shrink)

Albert the Great was one of the earliest Western scholars to apply the methodology of Aristotle's Posterior Analytics to diverse fields of natural philosophy. Some medievalists, however, question Albert's commitment to Aristotelianism, interpreting his paraphrastic commentaries as an exposition of views he did not hold himself. Further, some modern Aristotle scholars argue that the methodology of the Posterior Analytics has little to do with Aristotle's actual practice in his scientific treatises. Albert, however, argued that this methodology is essential for achieving (...) a true scientia of nature and that Aristotle employed this methodology in his zoological books. In his commentary on the first book of the Parts of Animals , Albert shows how the method of demonstration applies to the study of animals. He elaborates an account of demonstration ex suppositione finis as the sort of reasoning proper to a science of contingent things. He also argues that scientific explanation must be a two-part procedure. Preceding the final step of causal demonstration the data to be explained must be organized in such a way that the causally significant connections between them are discovered. This is achieved through a restricted application of Platonic division. Albert makes a careful study of the conditions for non-accidental division and shows how they result in quia demonstrations which in turn yield propter quid demonstrations of the cause. ;This two-step methodology is evident, Albert argues, in the arrangement of Aristotle's zoological treatises. The books of the Historia animalium are placed first because they contain the preliminary organization of animal differentiae through division. These are followed by books on the parts, generation and motion of animals which make use of the material so organized to demonstrate their causes. Thus, Albert agrees with recent scholars who argue that the Historia animalium is not a treatise on systematics, but a pre-causal study of animal morphology. ;Albert's careful interpretation of Aristotle's zoology in light of the methodological requirements of the Posterior Analytics taken together with his own research on animal differentiae demonstrates his commitment to Aristotelian principles of natural philosophy. (shrink)

Anyone making even a cursory study of the intellectual life of medieval Europe will notice everywhere evident a lively interest in animals. The literary manifestation of this interest best known today is the tradition of the bestiary and the closely associated encyclopedia tradition. Such treatments of animals, however, are notable for their less than accurate descriptions wherein the factual was often mixed with the fabulous and preference often shown for the exotic, mythical, and imaginative over the scientific. This changed radically (...) with the scientific revolution of the early thirteenth century and the recovery in the Latin West of the zoological treatises of Aristotle. By 1220 all of Aristotle’s De animalibus was available in a Latin translation made from the Arabic by Michael Scotus at Toledo, and the commentators began to take notice. By mid-century, Albertus Magnus had made the libri de animalibus the centerpiece of his massive literary production introducing Aristotelian natural science to readers of Latin. This was followed in the 1260s by the notable effort of William of Moerbeke to produce a corrected version of the zoology directly from the Greek. (shrink)

Among the more important contributions to late twentieth-century Aristotle studies was Pierre Pellegrin’s La Classification des animaux chez Aristote: Statut de la biologie et unité de l’aristotélisme, which appeared in 1982. This revisionist reading of the Historia animalium not only directed scholarly attention to Aristotle’s hitherto little-studied biological works, but it also discouraged the attempt to understand these works solely in terms of developments in modern biology. The result was a flurry of activity on the part of scholars who attempted (...) to reread the corpus in light of the biology and the biology in light of the corpus. Thus was born a new development in Aristotle studies that redirected attention toward finding unity within the corpus through the integrating value of key concepts, descriptions, and methods of the biological works. One of the best examples of this development can be found in the work of James Lennox who, over the past twenty years, has written extensively on Aristotle’s philosophy of biology. (shrink)

Nothing has so plagued twentieth-century philosophers of science as the demarcation problem—the effort to determine what constitutes science and marks it off from other human pursuits. We have come to the end of the century with, to say the least, no consensus among philosophers on this issue. This has led some, such as Larry Laudan, to announce the abandonment of the demarcation project, urging philosophers to turn their attention elsewhere. One wonders, however, whether all the options have been explored. In (...) particular, has the problem been sufficiently investigated in light of its historical origins? This question takes on some urgency, not only with the failure of modern philosophy of science to develop a viable definition of science, but also in light of recent developments in Aristotle studies. After all, Aristotle was the first philosopher to attempt a systematic account of the nature of science and the details of this account have been a major focus of the scholarship of the past two decades, especially in the work of such scholars as Pierre Pellegrin, James Lennox, and David Balme, to mention only a very few. (shrink)

An eminent historian of philosophy once suggested that the term “Byzantine philosophy” is an oxymoron. Surely, if there is an neglected stepchild of the history of Western philosophy, it is the philosophy of the medieval Greeks. Even generations of learned students of medieval philosophy have generally accepted the commonplace that little original work was produced in the medieval Greek east—certainly none that demanded the intense attention given to Latin and Arabic philosophical literature. It is hardly surprising, then, that histories of (...) Byzantine thought have been few and far between. A list of the work of Klaus Oehler, Basil Tatakis, Milton Anastos, and a few others virtually exhausts the list of available studies. Moreover, one must go to a few modern Greek centers, such as Thessaloniki or Athens, to find anything like a continuous tradition of scholarship on the subject. (shrink)

Historians of philosophy often overlook the fact that the reception of Aristotle's works in the Latin West during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was largely the reception of a natural science. More than half the corpus is devoted to such topics as zoology, animal psychology, atmospheric studies, cosmology, chemistry, and physical mechanics. A full quarter of the corpus is devoted to zoology alone. This point was well understood among the first generation of Latin commentators. Scholars such as Robert Grosseteste and (...) Albert the Great, while interested in Aristotle's metaphysics and ethics, realized that he was first and foremost a naturalist. Albert, in particular, understood that the work of the early peripatetics was primarily directed to plant and animal studies. Sharing their interests, Albert devoted much of his efforts to articulating, correcting, and extending their original scientific researches. (shrink)

Historians of philosophy often overlook the fact that the reception of Aristotle's works in the Latin West during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was largely the reception of a natural science. More than half the corpus is devoted to such topics as zoology, animal psychology, atmospheric studies, cosmology, chemistry, and physical mechanics. A full quarter of the corpus is devoted to zoology alone. This point was well understood among the first generation of Latin commentators. Scholars such as Robert Grosseteste and (...) Albert the Great, while interested in Aristotle's metaphysics and ethics, realized that he was first and foremost a naturalist. Albert, in particular, understood that the work of the early peripatetics was primarily directed to plant and animal studies. Sharing their interests, Albert devoted much of his efforts to articulating, correcting, and extending their original scientific researches. (shrink)

Ever since Auguste Comte articulated his Law of the Three Stages, positivism has maintained a stranglehold on the history and philosophy of science. Despite significant repudiations of this view, there remains a tendency to consider earlier science as an essentially more primitive form of human cognition. Thomas Kuhn’s warnings against this tendency, while widely accepted, have not always been heeded in particular studies. Part of the reason for this might be some dissatisfaction with Kuhn’s account of scientific paradigms in light (...) of what many historians still want to accept as evidence of the cumulative growth of scientific knowledge. Whatever the reason, there still from time to time appear studies which attempt to chronicle the development of science in terms of a developmental anthropology of mental levels. This is often done without a sufficiently critical assessment of the philosophical presuppositions which underlie such an analysis. Further, such analyses ignore the possibility that differing scientific conceptions might result more from differing, but equally sophisticated, ontologies rather than from a transition from a primitive mentality to a more scientific mentality. (shrink)

In 1913 Pierre Duhem published a lecture in which he summarized his then startling discovery that Galileo owed a great deal to medieval scholastic natural philosophers. The result of this discovery was not only to establish the history of medieval science as an autonomous scholarly discipline, but also to initiate intensive research into the background and sources of Galileo's work. No scholar has contributed more in recent years to this research than William Wallace. His Prelude to Galileo and his Galileo (...) and His Sources have gone a long way toward solving a number of problems concerning Galileo's connection to the medieval tradition. In two important new books, Wallace takes this research another step forward by documenting Galileo's participation in the commentary tradition on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. (shrink)

In his monumental History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages, Etienne Gilson devotes only one paragraph in his chapter on fourteenth-century nominalism to Adam of Wodeham. He admits that this is partly due to the fact that little is known of Adam's philosophical views except that he is generally considered an Ockhamist. Gilson's treatment reflects the once widely held view that Adam's contributions to the history of philosophy were limited to expositions of William of Ockham. Adam was William's student (...) at Oxford and later served as his teacher's secretary. He was perhaps best known as the author of an introduction to William's Summa logicae. More recent scholarship, however, has established Adam as an original philosopher in his own right and, in this regard, this critical edition of the Lectura secunda is an important contribution. (shrink)