Aristotle’s theory of seed has occupied a very important place in the history of ancient embryology and medicine. Previous studies have overemphasized, in light of the APo. II method, Aristotle’s definition of seed as male semen. In this paper, I wish to show that there are at least three independent definitions of seed working in Aristotle’s Generation of Animals: seed as male semen, seed as female menstruation and seed as embryo. Those three definitions are mutually exclusive on the one hand, (...) but on the other hand, they are also capable of being unified into one Aristotelian account, which can help us understand better Aristotle’s theory of seed. (shrink)

Aristotle’s 'Metaphysics' defends a number of theses about oneness ['to hen']. For interpreting the 'Metaphysics'’ positive henology, two such theses are especially important: 'to hen' and being ['to on'] are equally general and so intimately connected that there can be no science of the former which isn’t also a science of the latter, and to hen is the foundation ['archē'] of number qua number. Aristotle decisively commits himself to both and. The central goal of this article is to improve our (...) understanding of what the 'Metaphysics'’ endorsement of their conjunction amounts to. To this end we explore three manners of being one which enter into Aristotle’s 'Metaphysics': I call them 'unity, uniqueness', and 'unit-hood'. On the view the article defends, it’s unity that’s at issue in Aristotle’s endorsement of and unit-hood that’s at issue in his endorsement of. The 'Metaphysics'’ positive henology as whole, I suggest, is best interpreted by positing a theory-internal distinction between unity, uniqueness, and unit-hood. (shrink)

When questioning whether political deception can be ethically warranted, two competing intuitions jump to the fore. First, political deception is a fact of human life, used in the realpolitik of governance. Second, the ethical warrant of truth asserts itself as inexorably and indefatigably preferable to falsehood. Unfortunately, a cursory examination of the history of philosophy reveals a paucity of models to marry these basic intuitions. Some thinkers (e.g., Augustine, Aquinas, Grotius, Kant, Mill, and Rawls) privilege the truth by neglecting the (...) realpolitik, i.e., the truth is inviolate. Others (e.g., Machiavelli, Bentham, and the often infamous caché of 20th century dictators) focus upon the realpolitik to the exclusion of the primacy of the truth. A third group of critical thinkers (e.g., Arendt and Bok) examine the topic but offer no positive, systematic treatment of deception. Lacking are theories which simultaneously recognize that political untruth is often necessary, but that untruth is only justified when a) truth is politically impossible, b) the necessity of untruth is demonstrable, and c) the truth can be replaced with a minimally injurious untruth. Plato offers one such account in the Republic, arguing that deceit must be applied medicinally to the city. However, his account is problematic in detail. One of Plato’s inheritors, the 10th century thinker al-Fārābī, advanced Plato’s theoretical account, arguing that political governance requires restrained political deception. This deception, the expression of philosophical truths through the symbols of religion, meets the criteria mentioned above, being necessary, demonstrably necessary, and minimally injurious. But while al-Fārābī provides a valuable model for what justified political deception could look like, the lengths to which he must go in order to create a viable model for political deception reveals the untenability of the notion of justified political deception writ large. One must orchestrate an entire cosmos around the notion, notably a cosmos that does not match our own. One must adopt very specific conceptions of human nature, association, and happiness, as well as a particular metaphysics and epistemology. For, while al-Fārābī shows that political deception can be justifiable, he also reveals its unjustifiability outside an idealized setting. (shrink)

This thesis is concerned with answering the question, what is the central argument of Avicenna’s Metaphysics of the Healing that brings its opening ontological approach to the subject of first philosophy to its ultimate theological goal and conclusion? This dissertation contends that it is the function of the fundamental scientific first principles of metaphysics, and in particular the fundamental primary notion necessary, to provide the intelligible link that Avicenna employs to demonstrate the existence and true-nature of the divine necessary existence (...) in itself on the basis of his doctrine of being. This conclusion is pursued through a systematic and cumulative line of inquiry that begins in Part I with Avicenna’s logical–cum–epistemological doctrine of conceptualization and assent, the heuristic order of the basic scientific questions, and his theory of a demonstrative science. The thesis then moves from the wider concentric circles concerned with logical matters into a series of narrowing concentric circles pertaining to the scientific order of the MH. Part II presents a close analysis of the Metaphysics of the Healing’s novel reception and reorganization of Aristotelian metaphysics according to Avicenna’s theory of demonstrative science, which consists in a subject, scientific first principles, and objects of inquiry that includes the species, proper accidents, and the science’s ultimate goal which is the aitiological–cum–theological inquiry into the causes of being. Part III transitions into a still narrower set of concentric circles that provide a detailed explication of the formal and material aspects of the scientific first principles of the Metaphysics of the Healing. Finally, the main argument of the thesis reaches the central point and question of the dissertation in Part IV, which establishes the fundamentality of the primary notion the necessary in the ontology, aitiology, and theology of the Avicenna’s Metaphysics of the Healing. Part IV concludes that the principal function of the fundamental primary notion the necessary is to provide the intelligible link that connects Avicenna’s doctrine of being with the divine necessary existence in itself. (shrink)

Averroes, considered to be the greatest Aristotelian commentator in the Middle Ages, has written three different types of commentary on almost all the works of this great philosopher: short, middle and long. These commentaries have been translated into Latin and Hebrew in the early period, and profoundly influenced both Medieval Europe and Jewish thought for centuries. The effect of Averroes in the West was to spread the whole of Europe under the name of Latin Averroism. The text what you have (...) consists of some remarks about the translation of the commentary on the ‘Book Alpha Meizon’, the second book of Averroes’ Tafsīr Mā Ba’d at-Tabī’a. (shrink)