This book investigates what change is, according to Aristotle, and how it affects his conception of being. Mark Sentesy argues that change leads Aristotle to develop first-order metaphysical concepts such as matter, potency, actuality, sources of being, and the teleology of emerging things. He shows that Aristotle’s distinctive ontological claim—that being is inescapably diverse in kind—is anchored in his argument for the existence of change. -/- Aristotle may be the only thinker to have given a noncircular definition of change. When (...) he gave this definition, arguing that change is real was a losing proposition. To show that it exists, he had to rework the way philosophers understood reality. His groundbreaking analysis of change has long been interpreted through a Platonist lens, however, in which being is conceived as unchanging. Offering a comprehensive reexamination of the relationship between change and being in Aristotle, Sentesy makes an important contribution to scholarship on Aristotle, ancient philosophy, the history and philosophy of science, and metaphysics. (shrink)

Aristotle's account of external goods in Nicomachean Ethics I 8-12 is often thought to amend his narrow claim that happiness is virtuous activity. I argue, to the contrary, that on Aristotle's account, external goods are necessary for happiness only because they are necessary for virtuous activity. My case innovates in three main respects: I offer a new map of EN I 8-12; I identify two mechanisms to explain why virtuous activity requires external goods, including a psychological need for external goods; (...) and I show the relevance of Aristotle's distinction between wishing and choosing. On the view I attribute to Aristotle, our capacity to choose virtuously requires, first, that we wish for external goods (because virtue requires the right attitudes of evaluation) and, second, that these wishes are generally fulfilled (because the social consequences and psychological pain of unfulfilled wishes undermine our opportunity to act virtuously and to take pleasure in acting virtuously). I close with discussion of how Aristotelians should defend this approach. (shrink)

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)

Rawls scholarship has not paid much attention to Rawls's early methodological writings so far, pretty much focusing on thereflective equilibrium(RE) which he is understood to have adopted inA Theory of Justice. Nelson Goodman's coherence-theoretical formulations concerning the justification of inductive logic inFact, Fiction and Forecasthave been suggested as the source of the RE. Following Rawls's methodological development in his early works, we shall challenge both these views. Our analysis reveals that the basic elements of RE can be located in his (...) ‘Two Concepts of Rules’ essay. We shall further show that the origins of RE go all the way back to Aristotle's methods of ethics, as RE accords with the methodology entitledsaving the appearances(SA) in recent Aristotle scholarship. (shrink)

Perhaps the real paradox of Zeno's Arrow is that, although entirely stationary, it has, against all odds, successfully traversed over two millennia of human thought to trouble successive generations of philosophers. The prospects were not good: few original Zenonian fragments survive, and our access to the paradoxes has been for the most part through unsympathetic commentaries. Moreover, like its sister paradoxes of motion, the Arrow has repeatedly been dismissed as specious and easily dissolved. Even those commentators who have taken it (...) seriously have propounded solutions with which they profess themselves to be perfectly satisfied. So my question is: will Zeno's Arrow survive into the millennium just begun? (shrink)

This paper identifies a problem that Aristotle revealed and that Heidegger’s own insights, into the diverse forms that the Being of entities takes, exacerbated: the problem is whether there is sense to the idea of ‘Being in general’—‘Being as a whole’—and this is a problem because there not being such sense threatens the very possibility of the discipline of ontology. The paper proposes that Heidegger envisaged the project which a completed Being and Time would have carried out as an attempt (...) to solve this problem. The project considers what the subject who intends ‘Being as a whole’ would have to be like; crucially this requires reflection on what it would be for that subject itself to be a whole; and we find such reflection in Heidegger’s discussion of authenticity. By looking in particular at his notions of ‘guilt’ and ‘Being-towards-death’, and the role that they play in identifying an ‘ecstatic’ form of temporality, we can identify a ‘horizon’ against which the authentic can be seen as ‘being-a-whole’ and as living in the light of an understanding of what might indeed be called ‘Being as a whole’. (shrink)

(2013). Heidegger, Wittgenstein and St Paul on the Last Judgement: On the Roots and Significance of ‘The Theoretical Attitude’. British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 143-164. doi: 10.1080/09608788.2012.686980.

In some quarters, it is held that Anscombe proved that a zygote is not a human being on the basis of an argument involving the possibility of identical twins, but there is surprisingly little agreement on what her argument is supposed to be. I criticize several extant interpretations, both as interpretations of Anscombe and as self-standing arguments, and offer a different understanding of her conclusion on which the non-specificity of creation processes and their goals is at issue.

SummaryCarnap tried to overcome metaphysics through a distinction between empirical and conceptual truths. The distinction has since been challenged, but not on the basis of a systematic logical analysis of language. It is suggested here that the logical theory of identifiability based on the author's interrogative model will provide the tools for such a systematic analysis. As an example of what the model can do, a criticism is offered of Quine's and Chomsky's implicit assumption that language learning is based on (...) atomistic “answers” .RésuméCarnap a essayé de dépasser la métaphysique par une distinction entre des vérités empiriques et des vérités conceptuelles. Cette distinction a ensuite été contestée, mais non sur la base ?une analyse systematique du langage. On suggére ici que la théorie logique de ľidentifiabilité basée sur le modéle interrogatif de ľauteur fournira les outils ?une telle analyse systématique. Comme exemple de ce que peut faire ce modéle, on présente une critique de la supposition implicite de Quine et de Chomsky selon laquelle ľapprentissage du langage repose sur des ≫réponses≪ atomiques .ZusammenfassungCarnap versuchte Metaphysik durch eine Unterscheidung zwischen empirischen und konzep‐tuellen Wahrheiten zu iiberwinden. Seither wurde die Unterscheidung immer wieder angegriffen, jedoch nicht auf der Basis einer systematischen logischen Analyse der Sprache. In vorliegendem Artikel wird vorgeschlagen, dass eine logische Theorie der Identifizierbarkeit, welche auf dem Frage‐Antwort‐Modell des Autors grilndet, die Instrumente fur eine solche logische Analyse bereitstellt. Als Beispiel dafiir, was das Modell leisten kann, dient eine Kritik an Quines und Chomskys impliziter Voraussetzung, dass das Erlernen von Sprache auf atomaren ≫Antworten≪ aufbaut. (shrink)

Anaximenes is usually considered to be a material monist recognizing transparent atmospheric air as a principle (ἀρχή). In the cosmogonic explanation of the origin of the earth and the heavenly bodies, the Greek term ἀήρ turns out to mean rather ‘opaque damp mist’. However, Not only does it accord with archaic usage, but also with how it was used in his mentor, Anaximander. Yet, in cosmology ἀήρ means ‘air’ serving as stuff on which the earth and the heavenly bodies float. (...) Hence, in keeping with contemporary usage, Anaximenes recognised two kinds of ἀήρ, distinguishing them functionally. Whereas mist is conceived of as a generating substance, air functions only as carrying stuff. (shrink)

This catalogue is divided into two parts. Part 1 presents basic bibliographical information on books and journal issues that consist exclusively or in large part in papers devoted to the Presocratics and the Sophists. Part 2 lists the papers on Presocratic and Sophistic topics found in the volumes, providing name of author, title, and page numbers, and in the case of reprinted papers, the year of original publication. In some cases Part 2 lists the complete contents of volumes, not only (...) the Presocratic and Sophistic-related papers. Annual updates are submitted as additional files below. (shrink)

What does Plato mean in saying that, for all forms, “F-ness is F”? In such claims, I argue, ‘F’ is being used metonymically to refer to the property of being productive of F-ness rather than to the property of being F, in a way consistent with univocity and the rejection of a genuine Self-Predication Assumption. I explain and defend this productive metonymy reading and show how it can resolve the troubling argument at Phaedo 74b7-c6.

La exposición y crítica de las doctrinas antiguas tiene un lugar importante en los escritos de Aristóteles. Sin embargo, ciertas dudas se han vuelto corrientes acerca de la confiabilidad de sus descripciones. Más aún, se ha sostenido que Aristóteles deforma la comprensión histórica a través de la introducción de conceptos y términos propios. En este libro se aborda el problema a través de un análisis de las críticas que Aristóteles dirige a la teoría platónica de las Ideas, que permite explicar (...) la constitución y desarrollo de importantes conceptos aristotélicos a partir de la confrontación dialéctica con las doctrinas de su maestro. En efecto, las dificultades genuinas que Aristóteles descubre en el platonismo constituyen el motor para gestar nuevos conceptos, que no son ajenos, sino que surgen como implicaciones del examen crítico. Así, la imposición de términos propios no debe interpretarse como distorsión, sino como el modo que Aristóteles adopta para exhibir su particular solución a los problemas que los filósofos anteriores dejaron sin solución. (shrink)

This dissertation explores Aristotle’s use of teleology as a principle of explanation, especially as it is used in the natural treatises. Its main purposes are, first, to determine the function, structure, and explanatory power of teleological explanations in four of Aristotle’s natural treatises, that is, in Physica (book II), De Anima, De Partibus Animalium (including the practice in books II-IV), and De Caelo (book II). Its second purpose is to confront these findings about Aristotle’s practice in the natural treatises with (...) the theoretical picture of the structure of teleological explanations gained from Aristotle’s theory of scientific demonstration. For this purpose a new interpretation of Analytica Posteriora II.11 is presented. This study thereby contributes to recent scholarship on the relation between Aristotle’s philosophy of science and his philosophy of nature, while at the same time adding to our knowledge of Aristotle’s notion of teleology in terms of its explanatory merits and limits. (shrink)

The aim of this research is to reconstruct a metaphysical interpretation of the philosophy of history with regard to the spirit of historical thinking. The spirit of historical thinking is to emphasize the relation between what happened in the past and historical thinking about the past in the present. However, current philosophies of history, which are largely epistemologically oriented, have not adequately explored this relation. In order to investigate the relation between past and present, I refer to an Aristotelian philosophy (...) of practice and politics, and adapt it to the domain of the philosophy of history, and argue the case for a metaphysical science of history. A metaphysical science of history contains two primary parts. They are the part on physis and the part on technê/phronēsis. With regard to physis that metaphysically investigates the natural generating progress of entities, I argue that the existence of historical events can be understood as a natural developing progress in which the events are ordered in a chronological sequence. Such chronological sequence is essentially the physis of history in the metaphysical sense. For the part on technê/phronēsis, I demonstrate that Aristotelian knowing is for itself an action of knowing, which is located beyond a given temporal position in the past to both the past and the thinking present, and indicates the fundamental Beingness of history. Finally I conclude that the historical eudaimonia, namely the pursuing of the completeness of historical knowledge, is the final presentation of actualizing Geschehenszeit, as it bridges the past and the present in accordance to the spirit of historical thinking. (shrink)