According to the standard and largely traditional interpretation, Aristotle’s conception of nous, at least as it occurs in the Posterior Analytics, is geared against a certain set of skeptical worries about the possibility of scientific knowledge, and ultimately of the knowledge of Aristotelian first principles. On this view, Aristotle introduces nous as an intuitive faculty that grasps the first principles once and for all as true in such a way that it does not leave any room for the skeptic to (...) press his skeptical point any further. Thus the tradi- tional interpretation views Aristotelian nous as having an internalist justificatory role in Aristotelian epistemology. In contrast, a minority (empiricist) view that has emerged recently holds the same internalist justificatory view of nous but rejects its internally certifiable infallibility by stressing the connection between nous and Aristotelian induction. I argue that both approaches are flawed in that Aristotle’s project in the Posterior Analytics is not to answer the skeptic on internalist justificatory grounds, but rather lay out a largely externalist explication of scientific knowledge, i.e. what scientific knowledge consists in, without worrying as to whether we can ever show the skeptic to his satisfaction that we do ever possess knowledge so defined. (shrink)

This book investigates Aristotle’s views on abstraction and explores how he uses it. In this work, the author follows Aristotle in focusing on the scientific detail first and then approaches the metaphysical claims, and so creates a reconstructed theory that explains many puzzles of Aristotle’s thought. Understanding the details of his theory of relations and abstraction further illuminates his theory of universals. Some of the features of Aristotle’s theory of abstraction developed in this book include: abstraction is a relation; perception (...) and knowledge are types of abstraction; the objects generated by abstractions are relata which can serve as subjects in their own right, whereupon they can appear as items in other categories. The author goes on to look at how Aristotle distinguishes the concrete from the abstract paronym, how induction is a type of abstraction which typically moves from the perceived individuals to universals and how Aristotle’s metaphysical vocabulary is "relational.’ Beyond those features, this work also looks at how of universals, accidents, forms, causes and potentialities have being only as abstract aspects of individual substances. An individual substance is identical to its essence; the essence has universal features but is the singularity making the individual substance what it is. These theories are expounded within this book. One main attraction in working out the details of Aristotle’s views on abstraction lies in understanding his metaphysics of universals as abstract objects. This work reclaims past ground as the main philosophical tradition of abstraction has been ignored in recent times. It gives a modern version of the medieval doctrine of the threefold distinction of essence, made famous by the Islamic philosopher, Avicenna. (shrink)

This paper argues that the discussion in which Aristotle engages in Metaphysics ΖΗ has the same starting-point as natural science: the principles of changing substances. These inquiries are nonetheless distinct because natural science uses these principles in its detailed investigations into natural substances, whereas ΖΗ reflect on the principles themselves. ΖΗ are an integral part of Aristotle’s inquiry into the principles of all substances, changing and unchanging: they are not merely preliminary to an inquiry into the latter kind. They are (...) also an integral part of Aristotle’s ‘first philosophy’, alongside theology’s study of the nature and activity of unchanging substances. (shrink)

In Book Γ of the Metaphysics Aristotle states and attempts to prove what he calls the basic principle of the science of being as being: the law of non‐contradiction. In this paper I defend an interpretation of his proof, inspired by Elizabeth Anscombe's 1961 essay in ‘Three Philosophers’, though some of its features were remarked on by Lukasiewicz in 1910, according to which Aristotle is proving this principle only for substance predicates, and that it is to be understood as the (...) basic principle of metaphysics rather than of logic. It is the principle that every substance has an essential nature, and if it is of the essential nature of x to be F then it cannot be of the essential nature of x to be not‐F since then x's being F and x's being not‐F would be the same. He puts it by saying that in such a case F and not‐F would ‘signify the same’ for x. Since they do not, x cannot be both. (shrink)

Over time, several authors have argued that, for Aristotle, dialectic is a method of discovery or establishment of the principles of science in general. In this article, I will present four arguments against this view and propose a deflationary view of the role of dialectic in this regard. Accord ing to this view, such a role consists only in the defence of common principles against potential eristic attacks. Keywords: Science, dialectic, first principles, common principles, proper principles.

En el artículo se analiza la naturaleza dialéctica del libro III de la Metafísica de Aristóteles a la luz del contenido, procedimiento y utilidad del método dialéctico expuestos por el Estagirita en los Tópicos.