I discuss the exact meaning of the thesis according to which the object of scientific knowledge is necessary. The thesis is expressed by Aristotle in the Posterior Analytics, in his definition of scientific knowledge. The traditional interpretation understands this definition as depending on two parallel and independent requirements, the causality requirement and the necessity requirement. Against this interpretation, I try to show, through the examination of several passages that refer to the definition of scientific knowledge, that the necessity requirement specifies (...) more exactly the causality requirement: what cannot be otherwise is the explanatory relation between the explanandum and the cause by which it is what it is. (shrink)

according to aristotle's posterior analytics, scientific expertise is composed of two different cognitive dispositions. Some propositions in the domain can be scientifically explained, which means that they are known by "demonstration", a deductive argument in which the premises are explanatory of the conclusion. Thus, the kind of cognition that apprehends those propositions is called "demonstrative knowledge".1 However, not all propositions in a scientific domain are demonstrable. Demonstrations are ultimately based on indemonstrable principles, whose knowledge is called "comprehension".2 If the knowledge (...) of all scientific propositions were... (shrink)

In Posterior Analytics II 16-17, Aristotle seems to claim that there cannot be more than one explanans of the same scientific explanandum. However, this seems to be true only for “primary-universal” demonstrations, in which the major term belongs to the minor “in itself” and the middle term is coextensive with the extremes. If so, several explananda we would like to admit as truly scientific would be out of the scope of an Aristotelian science. The secondary literature has identified a second (...) problem in II 16-17: the middle term of a demonstration is sometimes taken as the definition of the minor term (the subject), other times as the definition (or the causal part of the definition) of the major (the demonstrable attribute). I shall argue that Aristotle’s solution to the first problem involves showing that certain problematic attributes, which appear to admit more than one explanation, actually fall into the privileged scenario of primary-universal demonstrations. In addition, his solution suggests a conciliatory way-out to our second problem (or so I shall argue): the existence of an attribute as a definable unity depends on its subject having the essence it has, which suggests that both the essence of subjects and the essence of demonstrable attributes can play explanatory roles in demonstrations. (shrink)

These are the commentaries (or notes) for Aristotle's Metaphysics V (Delta) 18-30. This file must be read together with the translation into Portuguese, which has been published as a different item, with a different DOI. In the Introduction, I discuss many issues about Aristotle's jargon, Aristotle's style and Aristotle's awareness of many philosophical problems that nowadays we locate within the branch Philosophy of Language.

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

This article offers a reconstruction of an argument against infinite regress formulated by Aristotle in Posterior Analytics I 22. I argue against the traditional interpretation of the chapter, according to which singular terms and summa genera, in virtue of having restrict logical roles, provide limits for predicative chains, preventing them from proceeding ad infinitum. As I intend to show, this traditional reading is at odds with some important aspects of Aristotle’s theory of demonstration. More importantly, it fails to explain how (...) his proof is connected to a defence of the existence of ultimate explanations, a connection that must be the case if I 19-22 is advancing a foundationalist way-out to a sceptical challenge raised in I 3. (shrink)

I defend an interpretation of Aristotle’s _Posterior Analytics _Book I which distinguishes between two projects in different passages of that work: to explain what a given science is and to explain what properly scientific knowledge is. I present Aristotle’s theory in answer to ii, with special attention to his definition of scientific knowledge in 71b9-12 and showing how this is developed on chapters 1.2-9 and 1.13 into a solid Theory of Scientific Demonstration. The main point of this theory is that (...) demonstrations need to capture relevant explanations. Some formal requirements of the demonstration are unfoldings of the main project, 1.e., to capture and present properly relevant causal-explanatory relations. (shrink)

This is a translation, made by myself, of the paper to be published in Portuguese in the journal Discurso, 2020, in honour of the late professor Oswaldo Porchat. I discuss what Aristotle was trying to encode when he said that the object of scientific knowledge is necessary, or that what we know (scientifically) cannot be otherwise etc. The paper is meant as a continuation of previous papers—orientated towards a book on the Posterior Analytics—and thus does not discuss in much detail (...) key passages, as the very definition of scientific knowledge in APo I.2, or passages from APo I.4 and I.6 (for these, I refer to my previous papers). This paper is mainly focused on Aristotle’s references to his notion of scientific knowledge both in other passages from the APo and in other treatises. I intend to show that there is a progressive, intrinsic relation between the two requirements by which scientific knowledge is defined. It is not true that each of these requirements stems from a different source. The Causal-Explanatory requirements gives Aristotle the general heading. Then, the Necessity Requirement ranges over the explanatory relation between explanans and explanandum and thereby specifies what sort of cause is sctricly required for having scientific knowledge of a given explanandum. Now, Aristotle was also concerned with the necessary truth of the elemental predications that constitute a demonstration. My claim that the Necessity Requirement ranges over the explanatory relation does not ignore that concern, and does not deny it. My claim is that Aristotle’s main focus, and main concern, consists in stressing that the explanatory factor to be captured in scientific knowledge of a given explanandum is such that cannot be otherwise. (shrink)

What lies behind Aristotle’s declarations that an attribute or feature that is demonstrated to belong to a scientific subject is proper to that subject? The answer is found in APo. 2.8-10, if we understand these chapters as bearing not only on Aristotle theory of definition but also as clarifying the logical structure of demonstration in general. If we identify the basic subjects with what has no different cause, and demonstrable attributes (the kath’ hauta sumbebēkota) with what do have ‘a different (...) cause’, the definitions of demonstrable attributes necessarily have the minor terms of the appropriate demonstrations in their definitions, for which reason the subjects and demonstrable attributes are coextensive. (shrink)

I present Aristotle’s theory of causation in a way that privileges a comparison with contemporary discussion on causation. I do so by selecting in Aristotle’s theory points that are interesting to contemporary discussion and by translating Aristotle in the contemporary philosophical terminology. I compare Aristotle’s views with Mackie’s (1993/1965) and Sosa’s (1993/1980). Mackie is a humean regularist regarding the metaphysics of causal necessity, but his theory postulates some formal aspects of the causal relation which are similar to the Aristotelian theory. (...) By introducing the notion of causal field as a third causal relatum – a sample in which the cause must be picked out as a explanation coextensive to the effect –, Mackie holds a point very similar to Aristotle, inasmuch as both defend that the causal relation is triadic and both have the extensional desideratum. Sosa (1993/1980) defends that every cause necessitates its effect, arguing against classical Humeanism, and he also proposes a causal pluralism. Both these theses are clearly Aristotelian. Aristotle comprehends that the causal relation has three relata: a subjacent C, a property of that subjacent A and a cause B that explains why such property is attributed to that subjacent. The subjacent is similar to Mackie’s notion of causal field, for in regard to it the cause must be coextensive to the property. But Aristotle also says that for each explanandum (property attributed to a subjacent of which one aims to investigate a cause) there is only one cause, which necessitates it. Sosa and Aristotle are similar because both develop a causal pluralism from a theory of causes as having intrinsic necessitation. For Aristotle, causes/explanations [aitiai] are central for attaining scientific knowledge, and its triadic structure determines the syllogistic structure of scientific demonstrations. Aristotle’s theory of causation also involves comprehending the actualisation of capacities (dispositional properties of objects) affirming that the causal relation is resultant from intrinsic properties of the objects, and the cause B is the essence of the explanandum. (shrink)

Nos Segundos Analíticos I. 14, 79a16-21 Aristóteles afirma que as demonstrações matemáticas são expressas em silogismos de primeira figura. Apresento uma leitura da teoria da demonstração científica exposta nos Segundos Analíticos I (com maior ênfase nos capítulo 2-6) que seja consistente com o texto aristotélico e explique exemplos de demonstrações geométricas presentes no Corpus. Em termos gerais, defendo que a demonstração aristotélica é um procedimento de análise que explica um dado explanandum por meio da conversão de uma proposição previamente estabelecida. (...) Em uma estrutura silogística, a proposição previamente estabelecida é a premissa maior e o termo mediador deve ser comensurado ao explanandum. O conjunto da premissa maior e da premissa menor (o explanans) é coextensivo ao explanandum, mas há uma assimetria intensional entre o explanans e o explanandum, de modo que apenas o primeiro explique o último. Por fim, defendo que o elemento identificado no termo mediador deve ser o mais apropriado para explicar precisamente o que certo explanandum é. (shrink)