The Metaphysics of Gender is a book about gender essentialism: what it is and why it might be true.

Aristotle's defense of Dunamis -- Power and potentiality -- Rational and nonrational powers -- The priority of actuality -- Ontological hierarchy, normativity, and gender.

Charlotte Witt extracts from this text a coherent and provocative view about sensible substance by focusing on Aristotle's account of form or essence.

Feminist Metaphysics is the first collection of articles addressing metaphysical issues from a feminist perspective.

This book develops an account of what substance is in terms of the notion of independence. As the authors note, there is a tradition of defining substance as independent that begins with Aristotle. But what notion of independence can provide an adequate definition of substance? The authors find traditional attempts to define independence, including Aristotle’s, inadequate on a number of grounds, and they propose an alternative account. As a preface to this undertaking, the authors consider and reject a number of (...) standard objections to their project, and as an afterword, they argue that the notion of spiritual substance is as intelligible as the notion of material substance. (shrink)

Substance and Essence in Aristotle is a close study of Aristotle's most profound—and perplexing—treatise: Books VII-IX of the Metaphysics. These central books, which focus on the nature of substance, have gained a deserved reputation for their difficulty, inconclusiveness, and internal inconsistency. Despite these problems, Witt extracts from Aristotle's text a coherent and provocative view about sensible substance by focusing on Aristotle's account of form or essence. After exploring the context in which Aristotle's discussion of sensible substance takes place, Witt turns (...) to his analysis of essence. Arguing against the received interpretation, according to which essences are classificatory, Witt maintains that a substance's essence is what causes it to exist. In addition, Substance and Essence in Aristotle challenges the orthodox view that Aristotelian essences are species-essences, defending instead the controversial position that they are individual essences. Finally, Witt compares Aristotelian essentialism to contemporary essentialist theories, focusing in particular on Kripke's work. She concludes that fundamental differences between Aristotelian and contemporary essentialist theories highlight important features of Aristotle's theory and the philosophical problems and milieu that engendered it. (shrink)

The past twenty five years have seen an explosion of feminist writing on the philosophical canon, a development that has clear parallels in other disciplines like literature and art history. Since most of the writing is, in one way or another, critical of the tradition, a natural question to ask is: Why does the history of philosophy have importance for feminist philosophers? This question assumes that the history of philosophy is of importance for feminists, an assumption that is warranted by (...) the sheer volume of recent feminist writing on the canon. This entry explores the different ways that feminist philosophers are interacting with the Western philosophical tradition. (shrink)

Review of Substance and Essence in Aristotle: an Interpretation of Metaphysics VII-IX, by Charlotte Witt (Cornell University Press: 1989).

Introduction : kith, kin, and family / Sally Haslanger and Charlotte Witt Adoption and its progeny : rethinking family law, gender, and sexual difference / Drucilla Cornell Open adoption is not for everyone / Anita L. Allen Methods of adoption : eliminating genetic privilege / Jacqueline Stevens Several steps behind : gay and lesbian adoption / Sarah Tobias A child of one’s own : property, progeny, and adoption / Janet Farrell Smith Family resemblances : adoption, personal identity, and genetic essentialism (...) / Charlotte Witt Being adopted and being a philosopher : exploring identity and the "desire to know" differently / Kimberly Leighton Real othering : the metaphysics of maternity in children’s literature / Shelley Park Accidents and contingencies of love / Songsuk Hahn ; comments by Harry Frankfurt Abuse and neglect, foster drift, and the adoption alternative / Elizabeth Bartholet Feminism, race, and adoption policy / Dorothy Roberts Racial randomization / Hawley Fogg-Davis You Mixed?: racial identity without racial biology / Sally Haslanger. (shrink)

There is a surprising number of deformed animal kinds mentioned in Aristotle’s biological works. The number is surprising because, according to the standard understanding of deformed animals in Aristotle, it should be zero. And the number is significant because there are just too many deformed kinds at too many classificatory levels mentioned in too many works to dismiss them as a minor aberration or as an infiltration of folk belief into biology proper. This paper has two goals. The first is (...) to develop an interpretation of deformed animal kinds in Aristotle, which focuses on the meaning of deformity applied to kinds. To my knowledge there is no adequate interpretation of the meaning of deformity applied to kinds in the scholarly literature. (shrink)

when it is actually heating water; an object is perceptible only when it is actually being 1 perceived-- and so on. But, it is part of the notion of a causal power that it exists whether or not it is active. In order to respond to this challenge Aristotle draws a distinction between two ways of being a power; when it is active the power exists actually; when it is inactive it exists potentially. Contemporary writers have noted that we need (...) a way of understanding powers that includes their present but inactive existence, although Aristotle’s ontological response to this difficulty might seem wrong-headed or unnecessary. One objectionable aspect to his solution is the inherently teleological relationship between being x potentially and being x actually. Second, Aristotle does not draw an ontological distinction between those powers that operate with reason, and those that do not. He does provide different conditions of realization for the two kinds of powers, but those conditions are variants within the same ontology of causal powers. In this regard, Aristotle offers one possible realist framework of causal powers that sees human action on a continuum with the physical sciences rather than as categorically different from them, and therefore requiring an entirely different explanatory framework. It is important to note, however, that Aristotle’s paradigmatic physical science is biology and his framework for understanding natural living beings is teleological. Perhaps a better way to put this is that Aristotle’s understanding of the physical sciences is entirely different from ours, and it is a good question how relevant Aristotle’s unified framework of causal powers is given current conceptions of the physical sciences, and the centrality of physics and chemistry as models of the physical sciences. The common theme that unites both of these aspects of Aristotle’s ontology of causal powers is the central presence of teleology. (shrink)

Aristotle's doctrines about accidental predication, Accidental identity, Etc., Can be understood as an attempt to state the same view as russell put forward in his theory of descriptions. "a" is predicated accidentally of b when "a to b" has the sense "something that is a is b." this permits scope distinctions which can solve puzzles like that of the masked man, And sophisms involving tense. Aristotle's claim that accidental being is akin to nonexistence resembles russell's account of the present king (...) of france as a logical fiction. (shrink)

292 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 34:2 APRIL ~996 Huffman gives an excellent discussion of Philolaus' place in the development of Presocratic discussions of archai and hypotheses; and he reconstructs Philolaus' cosmogony and embryology, showing how Philolaus generates the cosmos and individ- ual living things within it from analogous principles, the central fire of the cosmos and the vital heat of an animal. Huffman places Philolaus' "literally eccentric world-view" in the context of this cosmogony, while at the same time (...) vindicating its mathematical good sense. Huffman's reconstruc- tion of Philolaus is an important contribution to understanding the Presocratic activity of writing peri phuseOs, both in reasoning to the arch~ and in explaining how the cosmos and living beings are generated from it. Restoring Philolaus to his place in the history of Presocratic philosophy helps us understand that history as a whole; though more remains to be said.. (shrink)

“How can it be that the female is both functional and a failure?”. Sophia Connell’s response comes in the form of a careful, thorough, and philosophically sensitive interpretation of Aristotle’s treatise on animal generation. By pursuing the topic of what Aristotle says about female animals and their role in reproduction, Connell casts light into many difficult corners of his theory: What does it mean to say that the male is the “hê archê [tês] kinêseos” of the generation? How should we (...) think of the motions in the semen that “construct” the embryo? Are these motions the same? According to Connell, they are not. The efficient cause of the generation is the male; he is the origin... (shrink)

At one point in this engaging collection of essays, G. E. R. Lloyd describes Aristotle's "sense of the interdependence of philosophical analysis and detailed empirical investigation", a description which fits the author himself. Lloyd is sensitive to the peculiarities of Aristotle's texts without sinking so deeply into their oddities that they lose focus and theoretical interest. With admirable lucidity Lloyd lays out the complex requirements of Aristotle's "official" theory of scientific demonstration, and then discusses the ways in which Aristotle's scientific (...) practice sometimes fits, and sometimes influences, the theory. Lloyd provides a pluralist interpretation of Aristotelian scientific method, and then demonstrates the ways Aristotle complicates his theory in order to fit the messy natural world. (shrink)

A review of David Bostock, Space, Time, Matter, and Form: Essays on Aristotle's Physics, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2006.

Michael Wedin’s Aristotle’s Theory of Substance provides an interpretation of primary substance in Metaphysics Book Z that is compatible with the ontology of the Categories. The incompatibilist position holds that primary substance in the Categories is the concrete, individual substance, like Socrates, whereas the title of primary substance in Metaphysics Z goes to the eidos, the form or the species. Hence, the ontology of the Categories is incompatible with the ontology of Metaphysics Z. One compatibilist strategy argues that the c-substance (...) remains primary substance in Metaphysics Z. Wedin takes another tack. He argues that c-substances are ontologically primary in both texts, and that Metaphysics Z introduces a new kind of priority, explanatory priority, awarded to the form of c-substances. Since c-substances and their forms are prior in different senses, the incompatibility vanishes. Wedin’s claim is stronger than mere compatibilism, however, since what forms explain are basic features of c-substances. Hence, Metaphysics Z is not only compatible with the Categories, “it is a theory about the theory of the Categories”. Wedin argues for what I call strong compatibilism. (shrink)