This doctoral thesis addresses a group of conceptual instruments that are central to Aristotle's philosophy, namely, the concepts of pros hen, homonymy, synonymy and multivocity. These instruments are crucial to many of Aristotle's works as he devotes himself to analysing the key notions in each of his investigations using these instruments. Despite the undisputable importance of these instruments, they display severe interpretative problems, which this thesis critically evaluates. The currently established view on the relationship between homonymy and multivocity is discussed (...) and then reassessed in order to approach the definition of the so-called pros hen structure. This approach takes into account a so-far undescribed distinction of types of examples Aristotle uses and sheds new light on the assessments of the role of the pros hen structure in Aristotle’s philosophy and the theories on development in Aristotle’s thought. Niels Tolkiehn studied Philosophy and Systematic Musicology at the University of Hamburg. He continued his studies as a doctoral student at the Munich School of Ancient Philosophy, a graduate school of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Supervised by Prof. Dr. Christof Rapp, he was awarded his doctoral degree in 2019 with this dissertation. (shrink)

‘There are important differences between Aristotle's account of homonymy and synonymy on the one hand, and Speusippus' on the other; in particular, Aristotle treated homonymy and synonymy as properties of things, whereas Speusippus treated them as properties of words. Despite this difference, in certain significant passages Aristotle fell under the influence of Speusippus and used die words “homonymous” and “synonymous” in their Speusippan senses.’.

RESUMEN: Si remitimos la dialéctica a su punto de partida socrático, es decir, a un método puramente interrogativo, hemos de comprender la aporia en un sentido radical: lejos de deberse a factores subjetivos o existenciales tales como la ignorancia de la respuesta, la aporia propiamente dicha es una cuestión que objetivamente no se puede decidir, pero que sin embargo, paradójicamente, no puede ser superada sino a través de una decisión. Se pone de manifiesto aquí que la cuestión del sentido de (...) ser, básico en la metafísica desde Aristóteles, presenta este carácter de manera ejemplar. ABSTRACT: If we bring dialectics back to its socratic origin, i.e. to a purely interrogative method, we are at the same time led to take aporia in a radical far from being due to such subjective or existential factors as the ignorance of the answer, aporia is, strictly speaking, a question that objectively cannot be settled in one sens more than in another- to the effect that, paradoxically, it is a question upon which one has necessarily and only to decide. The point here is that the question, basic to metaphysics from Aristotle onwards, «What does mean being?» presents this character in a paradigmatic way. (shrink)