Aristotle

Bd. 1. Acht Bücher Physik.--Bd. 2. Vier Bücher über das Himmelgebäude und zwei Bücher über Entstehen und Vergehen.--Bd. 3. Fünf Bücher von der Zeugung und Entwickelung der Tiere.--Bd. 4. Über die Dichtkunst. 2. Aufl.--Bd. 5. Vier Bücher über die Teile der Tiere.--Bd. 6. Politik Teil 1, Text und Übersetzung.--Bd. 7. Politik, Teil 2, Inhaltsübersicht und Anmerkungen.

A teleological explanation is an explanation in terms of an end or a purpose. So saying that ‘X came about for the sake of Y’ is a teleological account of X. It is a striking feature of ancient Greek philosophy that many thinkers accepted that the world should be explained in this way. However, before Aristotle, teleological explanations of the cosmos were generally based on the idea that it had been created by a divine intelligence. If an intelligent power made (...) the world, then it makes sense that it did so with a purpose in mind, so grasping this purpose will help us understand the world. This is the pattern of teleological explanation that we find in the Presocratics and in Plato. However, with Aristotle teleology underwent a change: instead of thinking that the ends were explanatory because a mind had sought to bring them about, Aristotle took the ends to operate in natural beings independently of the efforts of any creative intelligence. Indeed, he thought that his predecessors had failed to understand what was distinctive of nature, namely, that its ends work from the inside of natural beings themselves. (shrink)

This paper addresses the contemporary thesis of psychophysical supervenience and its application to the interpretation of Aristotle’s psychological hylomorphism. It will be shown that the supervenience thesis, in its different versions, fails to explain the essential unity of the soul and of the psychophysical compound. Arguments will be provided on the basis of Aristotle’s discussion of the harmony theory of the soul (_de An_. I 4) and more generally on his methodological claims on the definition of the soul and of (...) its affections (_de An_. I 1). (shrink)

Jimenez’s lucid, focused book is indispensable for those interested in social and emotional aspects of moral maturation. Arguing primarily that shame is central to Aristotle’s account of moral deve...

Regarding the famous Sea Battle Argument, which Aristotle presents in De Interpretatione 9, there has never been a general agreement not only about its correctness but also, and mainly, about what the argument really is. According to the most natural reading of the chapter, the argument appeals to a temporal concept of truth and concludes that not every statement is always either true or false. However, many of Aristotle’s followers and commentators have not adopted this reading. I believe that it (...) has faced so much resistance for reasons of hermeneutic charity: denying the law of universal bivalence seems to be overly disruptive to logical orthodoxy – the kind of logical orthodoxy represented by what we now call classical propositional logic, much of which Aristotle clearly supports in many texts. I intend to show that the logical-semantic theses that the traditional reading finds in De Interpretatione 9 are much more conservative than they may seem to be at first glance. First, I will show that they complement, and do not contradict in any way, the orthodox definitions of the concepts of truth and statement that Aristotle advances in other texts. Second, by resorting in an anachronistic vein to concepts and methods peculiar to contemporary logic, I will show that a trivalent modal semantics conforming to those theses can be built for a standard formal language of the classical propositional calculus. It is remarkable that reasonable concepts of logical truth and logical consequence that may be defined on the basis of this trivalent modal semantics are coextensive with their orthodox counterparts, the concepts of tautology and tautological consequence of classical bivalent and extensional semantics. (shrink)

I focus on the distinction between universal and particular knowledge or knowledge simpliciter in APr 2.21 and APo 1.1 as Aristotle’s explicit response to the paradox of the Meno. I attempt to derive a picture of Aristotle’s understanding of the philosophical problem underlying that paradox by asking what that problem would have to be in order for this distinction to make sense as a response to it. I consider two ways of taking the distinction, and argue that both point towards (...) a problem about deriving knowledge of particulars from knowledge of universals as the fundamental problem underlying Aristotle’s understanding of the Meno paradox. (shrink)

This is another contribution to the unending controversy over the two Barbaras. My approach to the problem is hopefully quite new: I wish to view the issue through the prism of modal upgrading. Modal upgrading occurs when a subject term that has only been predicated of assertorically in the premises is predicated of apodictically either: i) in the conclusion of a given syllogism, or; ii) in some proposition that is derived from either the premises of the given syllogism alone or (...) the premises in combination with other propositions that do not refer to the proposition’s subject term. I call the proposition after it has been upgraded the upgraded proposition. When a conclusion is the upgraded proposition, it is obviously a different predicate being predicated than was predicated in the premises. Aristotle endorses this kind of upgrading; it is effectively what happens in any valid mixed modal syllogism when the minor premise is not apodictic (e.g., Barbara LXL). In other cases the upgraded proposition is not a conclusion but still follows from the premises alone. In these cases it is the same predicate being predicated in the upgraded proposition as in the premises, although the quantity of the propositions are different (one is universal, another particular). Aristotle rejects this kind of upgrading and takes its occurrence as sufficient to deny the validity of the given syllogism (e.g., Barbara XLL). I will describe a third type where both the predicate remains the same and the quantity of the proposition remains the same as in the premise, e.g., the upgrading of “All C are B” to “All C are necessarily B”. In these cases it will turn out that the upgraded proposition is not derived from the premises alone, or at least, not syllogistically from the premises alone. This kind of upgrading too is reason for denying the validity of any syllogism from which the upgraded proposition follows as a consequence. I will show that Barbara LXL entails this kind of modal upgrading and should be rejected for this reason. Armed with this notion of modal upgrading I want to attack the problem of the two Barbaras in Aristotle’s apodictic syllogistic. Aristotle himself endorses mixed modal Barbara when the major is necessary and the minor is assertoric, thereby endorsing the first kind of modal upgrading, but rejects Barbara when the minor is necessary and the major is assertoric on the grounds that it leads to the second kind of modal upgrading. Theophrastus endorses the peioram rule which rejects both Barbaras on the grounds that the conclusion can only be as strong as the weakest premise. Łukasiewicz endorses both Barbaras. I will argue that both Barbaras lead to unacceptable modal upgrading and should be taken to be invalid for that reason. Hence, I agree with Theophrastus about the two Barbaras; however, I do not endorse the peioram rule because I think that the negative mixed modal syllogisms generally avoid this problem and is mostly correct. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss passage 403a10-16 from Aristotle’s De Anima. In this passage Aristotle deals with whether the soul could be separate from the body and presents an analogy with geometrical entities. This passage is highly obscure and it presents many textual difficulties. The interpretation I offer resolves the textual problems without requiring emendations to the text as many commentators suggest.

Halbbd. 1. Bücher I-VI.--Halbbd. 2. Bücher VII-XIV.

Revision of the author's Habilitationsschrift--Georg-August-Universit'at in G'ottingen, Wintersemester 1977/78.

In this paper, we examine a fundamental problem that appears in Greek philosophy: the paradoxes of self-reference of the type of “Third Man” that appears first in Plato’s 'Parmenides', and is further discussed in Aristotle and the Peripatetic commentators and Proclus. We show that the various versions are analysed using different language, reflecting different understandings by Plato and the Platonists, such as Proclus, on the one hand, and the Peripatetics (Aristotle, Alexander, Eudemus), on the other hand. We show that the (...) Peripatetic commentators do not focus on Plato’s solution but primarily on the formulation of the “Third Man” paradox. On the contrary, Proclus seems to be convinced that Plato suggests a sound solution to the paradox by defining the predicate of similarity (homogeneity) that demarcates two types of homogeneous entities – the eide and the participants in them in a way that their confusion would be inadmissible. We claim that Plato’s solution follows a sound line of reasoning that is formalisable in a language of Frege-Russell type; hence there exists a model in which Plato’s reasoning is valid. Furthermore, we notice that Plato’s definition of the second-order predicate of similarity is attained by resorting to first-order entities. In this sense, Plato’s definition is comparable to Eudoxus’ definition of ratio, which is also attained by resorting to first-order objects. Consequently, Plato seems to follow a logical practice established by the mathematicians of the 5th century, notably Eudoxus, in his solution to the paradox. (shrink)

1. T. Kommentar zum 7. Buch der Metaphysik.