Eu examino cada meandro do esforço de Aristóteles identificar vários usos de termos filosóficos essenciais em sua Metafísica, V.9-17.

This paper examines Aristotle’s notion of priority with the specific aim of capturing the sort of priority that characterizes the primacy of substances in his metaphysics. I reject the traditional interpretation, which understands the ontological priority of substances in terms of independent existence. But there are rather two sorts of priority: the ontological priority of substances should be understood in terms of completeness, whereas the ontological priority of “substances-of-something” (the essences) is a causal-explanatory priority. Furthermore, an important piece of Aristotle’s (...) argument against Platonism is that these two sorts of priority – namely, the completeness priority and the causal-explanatory priority – should be kept distinct. (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)

Ontological separation plays a key role in Aristotle’s metaphysical project: substances alone are ontologically χωριστόν. The standard view identifies Aristotelian ontological separation with ontological independence, so that ontological separation is a non-symmetric relation. I argue that there is strong textual evidence that Aristotle employs an asymmetric notion of separation in the Metaphysics—one that involves the dependence of other entities on the independent entity. I argue that this notion allows Aristotle to prevent the proliferation of substance-kinds and thus to secure the (...) unity of his metaphysical system. (shrink)

: Metaphysics B considers two sets of views that hypostatize mathematicals. Aristotle discusses the first in his B.2 treatment of aporia 5, and the second in his B.5 treatment of aporia 12. The former has attracted considerable attention; the latter has not. I show that aporia 12 is more significant than the literature suggests, and specifically that it is directly addressed in M.2 – an indication of its importance. There is an immediate problem: Aristotle spends most of M.2 refuting the (...) view that mathematicals are separate; but the B.5 mathematicals are inherent. I argue that the B.5 inherence is compatible with the M.2 separateness, and further, that aporia 12 is more than just a puzzle about the hypostatization of mathematicals. It is also a puzzle about the ontological status of mathematicals relative to sensibles. (shrink)