This book offers a text and translation of Theophrastus' "Metaphysics," together with a full commentary, which may be used as an introduction to the terminology of Aristotle's school. The Introduction provides an assessment of Theophrastus' contribution to Peripatetic thought on the principles of being.

Der Horizont der Moderne verschiebt sich -- Metaphysik nach Kant -- Motive nachmetaphysischen Denkens -- Handlungen, Sprechakte, sprachlich vermittelte Interaktionen und Lebenswelt -- Zur Kritik der Bedeutungstheorie -- Bemerkungen zu J. Searles "Meaning, communication, and representation" -- Die Einheit der Vernunft in der Vielfalt ihrer Stimmen -- Individuierung durch Vergesellschaftung : zu G.H. Meads Theorie der Subjektivität -- Philosophie und Wissenschaft als Literatur? -- Rückkehr zur Metaphysik? : eine Sammelrezension.

This work, the text of Martin Heidegger's lecture course of 1929/30, is crucial for an understanding of Heidegger's transition from the major work of his early years, Being and Time, to his later preoccupations with language, truth, and ...

" Faire d'Aristote un Aufklârer serait méconnaître ce qu'il y a en lui de religiosité authentique, cette intuition de la transcendance et du chorismos, qui sont la raison profonde de sa prudence spéculative. Faire d'Aristote un tragique serait méconnaître cette confiance en l'homme, en sa recherche et en son action, qui tranche sur les lamentations du chœur de la tragédie et sur une certaine résignation socratique et, avant la lettre, stoïcienne. Mais Aristote exalte l'homme sans le diviniser ; il en (...) fait le centre de son éthique, mais il sait que l'éthique n'est pas ce qu'il y a de plus haut, que Dieu est au-delà des catégories éthiques, ou plutôt que l'éthique se constitue dans la distance qui sépare l'homme de Dieu. Livré à ses seules forces par un Dieu trop lointain, qui est suffisamment visible pour être désiré, mais se tient trop à distance pour être possédé, l'homme est en butte, dans la région du monde qu'il habite, à un hasard qu'il ne peut entièrement dominer. Ou plutôt la vie de l'homme se meut entre deux hasards : le Hasard fondamental de la naissance, qui fait que la bonne nature n'est pas également partagée ; le hasard résiduel de l'action, qui fait que les résultats ne sont jamais tout à fait prévisibles. Mais le hasard de la naissance est le hasard résiduel de l'action divine, et la grandeur de l'homme consiste, en prolongeant par la prudence l'action d'une Providence défaillante, à reculer le plus possible les limites de l'imprévisible et de l'inhumain. " Pierre Aubenque. (shrink)

One of this century’s most important philosophers here focuses on Plato’s _Protagoras, Phaedo, Republic, _and _Philebus_ and on Aristotle’s three moral treatises to show the essential continuity of Platonic and Aristotelian reflection on the nature of the good. “Well translated and usefully annotated by P. Christopher Smith…. Gadamer’s book exhibits a broad and grand vision as well as a great love for the Greek thinkers.”—Alexander Nehemas, _New York__ Times Book Review_ “The translation is highly readable. The translator’s introduction and frequent (...) annotation provide special elucidation on points of doctrinal complexity, giving ample references to other works and rival interpretations.”—_Choice_ “This book is an important addition to the steadily growing number of Gadamer’s works available in English. In it, we see Gadamer at his best, that is, engaged in the practice of interpreting important texts from the philosophical tradition, and also at his most controversial…. I enthusiastically recommend this…challenging book as one that rewards all efforts to understand the important claims it makes on its readers.”—Francis J. Ambrosio, _International Philosophy Quarterly_ Hans-Georg Gadamer is professor of philosophy emeritus at the University of Heidelberg. He is the author of numerous books, including two others translated by Smith: _Dialogue and Dialectic: Eight Hermeneutical Studies on Plato _and _Hegel’s Dialectic: Five Hermeneutical Studies._. (shrink)

Ontology has been traditionally guided by sophia, a form of knowledge directed toward that which is eternal, permanent, necessary. This tradition finds an important early expression in the philosophical ontology of Aristotle. Yet in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle's intense concern to do justice to the world of finite contingency leads him to develop a mode of knowledge, phronsis, that implicitly challenges the hegemony of sophia and the economy of values on which it depends. Following in the tradition of the early (...) Heidegger's recognition of the ontological significance of Aristotle's Ethics and of Gadamer's appropriation of phronsis for hermeneutics, this article argues that an ontology guided by phronsis is preferable to one governed by sophia. Specifically, it suggests that by taking sophia as its paradigm, traditional philosophical ontology has historically been determined by a kind of knowledge that is incapable of critically considering the concrete historico-ethico-political conditions of its own deployment. This critique of sophia is accomplished by uncovering the economy of values that led Aristotle to privilege sophia over phronsis. It is intended to open up the possibility of developing an ontology of finite contingency based on phronsis. Such an ontology, because it is guided by and must remain responsible to the concrete individual with which it is engaged, would be ethical at its very core. (shrink)

Translator's Introduction: Hans-Georg Gadamer first published this essay in 1991 in his Gesammelte Werke, but it appeared shortly before in a Gedenkschrift for Karl-Heinz Ilting, a scholar of German Idealism and ancient philosophy who studied under Gadamer’s colleague, Erich Rothacker. The essay is the product of a lifetime of studies in Plato and Aristotle, reflecting in particular Gadamer’s ongoing preoccupation with the “Socratic question” and the development of his views on it since his Habilitationsschrift, Plato’s Dialectical Ethics . The Socratic (...) question consists of two intertwined questions: what is the good thing to do in a particular situation; and what is the human good. The latter question is the subject of philosophical ethics and motivates the thought of both Plato and Aristotle. As Gadamer argues here, but more extensively in The Idea of the Good in Platonic-Aristotelian Philosophy , both thinkers see this question of the good as grounded in the relat .. (shrink)

This essay was Gadamer 's position paper in the April 1981 “debate” with Derrida at a conference on “Text and Interpretation” held at the Sorbonne in Paris. In it he discusses his approach to texts and several elements of Derrida's philosophy,..

First published in 1988 as volume 63 of his Collected Works, Ontology—The Hermeneutics of Facticity is the text of Heidegger's lecture course at the University of Freiburg during the summer of 1923. In these lectures, Heidegger reviews and makes critical appropriations of the hermeneutic tradition from Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine to Schleiermacher and Dilthey in order to reformulate the question of being on the basis of facticity and the everyday world. Specific themes deal with the history of ontology, the development (...) of phenomenology and its relation to Hegelian dialectic, traditional theological and philosophical concepts of man, the present situation of philosophy, and the influences of Aristotle, Luther, Kierkegaard, and Husserl on Heidegger's thinking. Students of Heidegger will find initial breakthroughs in his unique elaboration of the meaning of human experience and the "question of being," which received mature expression in Being and Time. (shrink)

Argues that Heidegger's early reading of Aristotle provides him with a critical resource for addressing the problematic domination of theoretical knowledge in Western civilization.

_Interprets Heidegger’s phenomenological reading of Aristotle’s philosophy._.

In his recent edition, with translation and commentary, of Aristotle, Eth. Nic. VI, Hans-Georg Gadamer reproposes his interpretation of Aristotle's practical philosophy as a model for his own hermeneutics, confirming in this way his tendency to identify practical philosophy with the intellectual virtue of phronesis. Furthermore, although he recognizes the primacy attributed by Aristotle to the theoretical life, Gadamer tends to undervalue it and to consider phronesis and sophia at the same level. In particular he believes that the theoretical life (...) was for Aristotle an ideal accessible only to the gods. Unlike Heidegger, who refuses Aristotle's position because of the primacy of theoretical life, but appropriates his practical philosophy, Gadamer thinks that today is still possible to follow Aristotle, but only if we reduce that primacy. The article shows how, according to Gadamer, what Aristotle says about theoretical life, if rightly understood, can still be accepted. /// Na sua edição recente, com tradução e comentário ao Livro VI da Ética a Nicómaco de Aristóteles, Hans-Georg Gadamer reaflrma a sua interpretação dafllosofia prática de Aristóteles como modelo para a sua hermenêutica, confirmando deste modo a sua tendência a identificar a filosofia pratica de Aristóteles com a virtude dianoética da phronesis. Além disso, e apesar de reconhecer o primado atribuido por Aristóteles à vida teorética, Gadamer tende a desvalorizá-lo e a considerar a phronesis e a sophia como estando no mesmo piano. Gadamer parece especialmente convencido de que a vida teoretica para Aristóteles constitui um ideal apenas acessivel aos deuses. Ao contrário de Heidegger, que refuta a posição de Aristóteles por causa do primado atribuido à vida teorética, mas se apropria da sua filosqfia prática, Gadamer pensa ser ainda possivel seguir Aristóteles, para o efeito apenas se exigindo uma redimensionação desse primado. Enfim, o artigo demonstra como, segundo Gadamer, aquilo que Aristoteles diz acerca da vida teorética pode, se correctamente entendido, ser aceite ainda hoje. (shrink)