The main aim of my thesis is to ascertain whether empathy has the required qualities of an emotion. Disagreement is rife regarding the process leading to the arousal of an emotion, which creates uncertainty as to what exactly an emotion is, and how it appears. This is the first issue I tackle in my work, as I concentrate on examining some of the significant cognitive and feeling theories of emotions. My study of these theories outlines their downsides, and I instead (...) propose to retain a hybrid definition that combines the advantages of both families of theories to provide a balanced approach that recognises the importance of both physical changes and cognitions. The focus of my work then moves specifically onto empathy, with the intention of precisely defining this term too, its functioning, as well as the meaning of the expression ‘feeling empathy for someone’. The existing literature on empathy fails to provide a clear understanding of empathy’s classification as an emotion or a skill. My work is original in that I avoid assertions and clearly establish that empathy constitutes an emotion based on the definition of emotion I advance in the first part of my work. (shrink)

We have good reason to believe that Nicomachean Ethics VI. 2 is a Nicomachean revision of an originally Eudemian text. Aristotle seems to have inserted lines 1139a31-b11 by means of a marginal note, which the first editor then mistakenly added in the wrong place, and I propose that we move these lines so that they follow the word κοινωνεῖν at 1139a20. The suggested note appears to be Nicomachean for several reasons but most importantly because it contains a desire-based account of (...) the practical intellect as teleologically oriented to action. The NE articulates consequences of this account regarding practical philosophy’s methodology and teleological orientation to action. The EE does not articulate such consequences, and instead seems to assume an object-based account of the practical intellect. Consequently, it would seem that, between the EE and the NE, Aristotle revised his conception of the practical intellect and consequently his conception of practical philosophy. (shrink)

Aristotle uses philosophia (and philosophos, philosophein, philosophôs, sumphilosophein, philosophêteon) in at least ten senses across his oeuvre, as this first study of every instance in his writings reveals. Irrespective of the specific approaches of its practitioners, philosophia may be, for example, an exercise of cleverness; or leisurely study; or the desire to know; or the pursuit of fundamental explanation; or a historically extended discipline. This variety allows us to go some way in reconstructing the complex attitude Aristotle had toward a (...) culturally specific practice in which he located himself and soon helped develop into a specialized discipline. Another benefit is that it allows us to clarify the argumentative method in his Protrepticus, which depends on several senses of philosophia. It also puts up obstacles to determining whether, for example, Aristotle believes philosophia is an epistêmê. (shrink)

Summary The First Sacred War was hotly debated in the 4th century. The crimes committed by the Crisaeans in this war were later equated to those committed by the Phocians during the Third Sacred War, or those committed by the Locrians of Amphissa during the Fourth Sacred War. This paper shows how the parallels drawn between the First and Third Sacred Wars (SW1–SW3) and between the First and Fourth Sacred Wars (SW1–SW4) were respectively shaped and used as an argument in (...) two different milieus: in pro-Macedonian intellectual circles in Athens, and in the Athenian forensic and deliberative arena. The main aim of this paper is to understand why ‘SW1–SW3’ is not used as an argument in the latter. In fact, Athens’ most prominent politicians had to cope with the Athenian support for the Phocians in the so-called Third Sacred War. Thus, the Phocians were depicted as guilty, but not to the point that they were compared to the Crisaeans. The legacy of the latter was ambivalent and lent itself to this shift in meaning. (shrink)

I argue that Metaphysicsλ‎ is a unified work, and one which is not a continuation of the central books ΖΗΘ‎. It outlines an extensive project in First Philosophy, which has close connections with ΑΒΓΕ‎, but which proceeds on a different trajectory from ΖΗ‎. The principal problem in understanding λ‎ as a whole is how to reconcile Aristotle's explicit presentation of the book as a highly unified study with the disparate character of its two halves – the first a general‐metaphysical enquiry (...) into the features which changeable substances have as being substances of that kind, the second a detailed investigation of the specific character and activity of immaterial substances. My paper aims to show how this reconciliation is possible, and what we can learn about Aristotle's conception of first philosophy as a result. (shrink)

The editor’s General Introduction is divided into two parts. The first part, ‘Context’, discusses Locke’s analysis of the nature of error, the causes of error and the prevention and cure of error in the Conduct. His enquiry is placed in the context of his way of ideas as given in his Essay concerning Human Understanding. Locke’s two-stage way of ideas, his occupation with our mental faculties and with method form the interrelated main ingredients of his logic of ideas. There is (...) a complicated relation of continuity and change between the content and the structure of this new logic on the one hand and the content and structure of works by both scholastic predecessors and novel philosophers on the other hand. Once this context is taken into account, the Conduct can be understood as work that has a function within the structure of Locke’s logic of ideas that runs parallel to the function of the De sophisticis elenchis in the Aristotelian Organon. The second part of the General Introduction, ‘Text’, gives a description of the relevant MSS, an overview of references to the Conduct in Locke’s correspondence, a history of the genesis of the Conduct until its first publication in 1706 in the Posthumous Works, an analysis of the evidence provided by the MSS on how the Conduct grew out of the Essay, and a statement of the principles that underlie the present editon. (shrink)

This article summarizes Ockham's interpretation of Aristotle's categories, showing how his account of connotative concepts introduced a revision in the Aristotelian doctrine about the relation between mathematics and physics. The article shows that Ockham's account influenced William of Heytesbury, John Dumbleton, and Nicholas Oresme to re-interpret disciplinary relations and disciplinary boundaries. They did so, however, in ways compatible with other basic principles of Aristotelian philosophy of nature; nevertheless, their modifications of the Aristotelian account of mathematics stimulated later philosophers to construct (...) robust theories of mathematics compatible with modern mathematical physics. (shrink)