It is widely known that Aristotle rules out the existence of actual infinities but allows for potential infinities. However, precisely why Aristotle should deny the existence of actual infinities remains somewhat obscure and has received relatively little attention in the secondary literature. In this paper I investigate the motivations of Aristotle’s finitism and offer a careful examination of some of the arguments considered by Aristotle both in favour of and against the existence of actual infinities. I argue that Aristotle has (...) good reason to resist the traditional arguments offered in favour of the existence of the infinite and that, while there is a lacuna in his own ‘logical’ arguments against actual infinities, his arguments against the existence of infinite magnitude and number are valid and more well grounded than commonly supposed. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that both defence and criticism of the claim that humans act ‘under the guise of the good’ neglects the metaphysical roots of the theory. I begin with an overview of the theory and its modern commentators, with critics noting the apparent possibility of acting against the good, and supporters claiming that such actions are instances of error. These debates reduce the ‘guise of the good’ to a claim about intention and moral action, and in (...) so doing have become divorced from the theory's roots in classical and medieval philosophy. Aristotle and Aquinas’ ‘guise of the good’ is primarily a metaphysical claim resting on the equivalence between actuality and goodness, from which conclusions about moral action are derived. I show the reasoning behind their theory and how it forms the basis for the claims about intention and action at the centre of the modern debate. Finally, I argue that the absence of its original foundation is apparent in recent attacks on the ‘guise of the good’. It is unsurprising that modern action theory and ethics have not always been able to comfortably accommodate the ‘guise of the good’; they are only telling half of the story. (shrink)

This is a rough translation of Michael Frede's "La théorie aristotélicienne de l'intellect agent" published in 1996. This insightful paper contains an important interpretation of Aristotle's notoriously difficult theory of the active intellect from De Anima III, 5. I worked up a translation during some research and thought others might benefit from having an English translation available (I couldn't find one after a cursory internet search). It's not perfect, but it should give one a sense for Frede's argument that the (...) agent intellect is the same as the divine intellect of Metaphysics Lambda. I welcome any comments or suggestions for improvement, please email me at smurray7 [at] providence [dot] edu. (shrink)

Averroes, considered to be the greatest Aristotelian commentator in the Middle Ages, has written three different types of commentary on almost all the works of this great philosopher: short, middle and long. These commentaries have been translated into Latin and Hebrew in the early period, and profoundly influenced both Medieval Europe and Jewish thought for centuries. The effect of Averroes in the West was to spread the whole of Europe under the name of Latin Averroism. The text what you (...) have consists of some remarks about the translation of the commentary on the ‘Book Alpha Meizon’, the second book of Averroes’ Tafsīr Mā Ba’d at-Tabī’a. (shrink)

Monotheism is a product of abstract thought. Although it does not exactly overlap with the view of God in today's monotheistic religious beliefs, the thought of God in Ancient Greek philosophy, that is, the creative thought other than the creature, found its cores in Plato's Demiurge [Dēmiourgos], and this thought continued to develop with Aristotle, Plotinus and St Augustine. Thus, it can be said that the Christian faith, which includes the Jewish religion in terms of belief and Greek philosophy in (...) terms of thought, easily managed to gain a place in the medieval world of thought. With the effort to rationalize and ground the Christian faith, philosophy has become an end rather than a means on this path. -/- The translation of Aristotle's logical works (by Boethius) at the beginning of the 6th century gave an important impetus to the grounding of knowledge in sacred texts. However, the real influence of Aristotle occurred after the 13th century. The Crusades (1096-1272) and the Islamic world known through trade played an important role in this because the developments in Western Philosophy until the 13th century were largely based on translations and commentary texts in the Islamic world. In the Middle Ages, the person who was seen as the best commentator of Aristotle and who took the title of "commentator" [Shareh] was Averroes (1126-1198), who was also a member of this productive Islamic world of thought. He is known as the "commentator" because he interpreted Aristotle's works by adhering to his teachings. It is also said that Averroes pioneered Aristotle's recognition by westerners. Averroes’ commentaries are divided into three as long, middle, and short. In long commentaries, he blends Aristotle's philosophy with his own thoughts; he interprets Aristotle's philosophy in the middle commentaries; in short commentaries, he gives a summary of Aristotle's thoughts. -/- Aristotle's philosophy played an active role in shaping the thought system of Averroes. So much so that his epistemology is largely similar to Aristotle's epistemology: The source of knowledge, knowledge of knowledge with causes, the processes of the formation of human knowledge, etc. Here, a point where he differs from Aristotle is the source of knowledge, since he is an Islamic thinker. According to Averroes, God is the source and cause of things, and things are the source and cause of human knowledge. The formation of human knowledge consists of three stages: outer sense, inner sense, and mind. Another important issue of his epistemology, apart from the knowledge produced by man and the knowledge of God, is causality. Through causality, knowledge is formed, and since causality is continuous and necessary, this situation brings order with it. This ensures that the information is verified and thus genuine information is obtained. -/- Averroes’ understanding of ontology is in harmony with the teachings of Islam. He mainly talks about the relationship between philosophy and religion and thinks that these two actually talk about the same reality. He explains that philosophy and religion seem to conflict with the fact that the holy book has two meanings, visible and hidden. Thus, philosophy and religion do not actually conflict and do not say contradictory things. -/- Averroes, who followed Aristotle's way in terms of epistemology and ontology, took Plato as an example, not Aristotle, in his political philosophy for technical reasons. For this reason, his thoughts on state structuring are similar to Plato's The Republic [Politeia]. Averroes’ political philosophy is based on ethics. His thoughts on politics can be summarized with the basic concepts of happiness, justice, and equality. As in Plato and Aristotle, happiness is important for Averroes and the state is responsible for providing and protecting it. For this reason, it describes a virtuous city, and the virtue of justice is, in a sense, the condition of existence for all other virtues. -/- Averroes has been an important thinker for both the East and the West. He played a significant role in the efforts of the Middle Ages to reconcile religion and philosophy and became one of the names that the Western world benefited from most in establishing its bond with Greek thought. Averroes became famous as an Aristotelian commentator, but since he did not know Greek, he got to know Aristotle through translated works and wrote his comments on these translated works. Nevertheless, Aristotle's philosophy played an active role in shaping Averroes’ thought system, as he was an Aristotle commentator. (shrink)

Giving justice to Maximus any philosophy wich does not include mysticism will be false as philosophy. Our metaphysics must be mystical in order to be rational. In Maximus’ doctrine, then, Christ comes not to destroy but to fulfill the metaphysics of mystery elaborated by the philosophers. For him there can be no separation between philosophy and theology, or between natural and revealed theology. Thereby, Christology and liturgical mysticism are not additional to a neoplatonic, aristotelian, and other methaphysics. Maximus concern (...) was to continue, not the philosophical tradition of the Aristotelian commentators, but the theological one of the Fathers. He was not an Aristotelian commentator himself. The union and distinction are basic logical concepts in Maximus’ thinking, but the Chalcedonian logic is the application of these concepts. Only in this way one can talk about Christianization of aristotelian logic. St. Maximus the Confessor synthesized Aristotelianism influences with those of Platonism in order to exceed the daring speculations of cosmology origeniene. He had an extraordinary ability to combine metaphysical requirements with the effort of defining the faith dogma, and the monastic experiences with the depth thinking, succeeding to propose a new conception in which converge all cultural and religious influences. This study is analyzing the relationship between logoi and energeia (the intentional or “logical” energeia and the ontology of divine energy as ontological “logic”) within the maximian cosmology, by referring to the palamite theology. The concept of logoi for St. Maximus play a role similar in many respects to that of energy (energeiai) in Cappadocian Fathers, but the functional similarity it should not lead to the identification rationales with the energies. (shrink)

Commentators have long agreed that Wodeham’s account of objects of judgment is highly innovative, but they have continued to disagree about its proper interpretation. Some read him as introducing items that are merely supervenient on (and nothing in addition to) Aristotelian substances and accidents; others take him to be introducing a new type of entity in addition to substances and accidents—namely, abstract states of affairs. In this paper, I argue that both interpretations are mistaken: the entities Wodeham introduces (...) are really distinct from substances and accidents, but, like substances and accidents, they are concrete (rather than abstract). Moreover, the key to understanding the significance of his theory, I contend, lies in a proper understanding of the theoretical role these entities play in his theory of judgment. (shrink)

The prologue of the Sophistici elenchi is as close an Aristotelian text gets to dealing with language as a subject matter in its own right, only in reverse. Language and its features bear consideration to the extent that they account for some major predicaments discursive reasoning is prone to, both as a separate and as a common endeavour. That being said, the linguistic pitfalls that trick us into thinking that whatever is the case for words and word-compounds is also (...) the case for the things and facts linguistic items stand for reveal as much about good linguistic habits and sound argumentation as they themselves are revealed by the principles and rules our argumentation goes by. In this connection, Aristotle resorted to a curious (or not so curious) analogy between words and counters which played a major role in explaining why language is such a powerful source of illusion and deception. As it happens, Aristotle accounting analogy is a case in point for showcasing the level of sophistication medieval Latin literature on fallacies achieved as early as the first half of the twelfth century. As a matter of fact, Western commentators managed to build compelling cases both in favour of and against the understanding that was to become and still is the standard story – which, of course, speaks volumes about their exegetical proficiency and technical expertise. On the one hand, trusting implicitly Boethius’ translation and well aware of his views on disputational hazards as opposed to computational reliability, they usually understood Aristotle’s comparison as if it was an analogy in name only. On the other hand, despite Boethius’ translation put them at a considerable disadvantage, Latin commentators were able to construe Aristotle’s analogy as bringing together two sets of symbolic variables (words and counters) that are neither entirely free nor entirely bound – which expose them to subtle but critical shifts in value and meaning. (shrink)

Contingency is the presence of non-actualized possibility in the world. Fatalism is a view of reality on which there is no contingency. Since it is contingency that permits agency, there has traditionally been much interest in contingency. This interest has long been embarrassed by the contention that simple and plausible assumptions about the world lead to fatalism. I begin with an Aristotelian argument as presented by Richard Taylor. Appreciation of this argument has been stultified by a question pertaining to (...) the source of necessity and possibility and a closely related one regarding the nature of metaphysics itself. Answering these questions reveals the crucial issue here, to wit, necessity and possibility in a temporal world. This issue is investigated through an important later criticism of Taylor by David Foster Wallace. Wallace’s critique is significant because it brings to the fore the pivotal notion for understanding contingency in a temporal world, that of synchronic possibility, the idea that incompatible states of affairs are possible at a single moment. This notion provides the basis of distinguishing two systematic accounts of truth, modality and time: two metaphysics of contingency. On one account, Taylor’s Aristotelian argument is straightforwardly valid and compelling; on the other, it is fallacious. In closing, I present reasons why the former account, supporting the Aristotelian views of time and truth, is correct and make some comments to ameliorate this conclusion. (shrink)

Do the senses represent causation? Many commentators read Nicolas Malebranche as anticipating David Hume’s negative answer to this question. I disagree with this assessment. When a yellow billiard ball strikes a red billiard ball, Malebranche holds that we see the yellow ball as causing the red ball to move. Given Malebranche’s occasionalism, he insists that the visual experience of causal interaction is illusory. Nevertheless, Malebranche holds that the senses represent finite things as causally efficacious. This experience of creaturely causality (...) explains why Aristotelian philosophers and others struggle to recognize occasionalism’s truth. (shrink)

As Ebbinghaus (1908) tells us in the opening words of his popular textbook of psychology, “psychology has a long past but only a short history.” In my opinion, there are three foundational moments in the history of psychology and, paradoxically, all three are moments of great advancement in biology. First, in the long past of psychology, psychology did not exist as such but was part of philosophy. It is extremely interesting to understand why it has been necessary, at one point (...) of time in the sixteenth century, to invent this field and to create a signifier – namely “psychology” – separate from philosophy, which enabled the field to distinguish itself from philosophy (Mengal, 2000/2001). In this century of religious violence, bare corpses lay everywhere and progresses in anatomy are major. In 1540, the German religious reformer Philippe Melanchthon publishes a book which comments the De anima of Aristotle and he completes the Aristotelian text with a long treaty of anatomy (Mengal, 2000/2001). On the basis of this new knowledge, Melanchthon attributes functions to the body which were previously reserved for the soul. The brain becomes the principal organ of sensory functions and displaces the heart as the seat of emotional life and of thought. To the Aristotelian position that all living beings, whether plant, animal, or human, to varying degrees possess a soul which organizes the body, Melanchthon opposes a dualistic anthropology which divides the human in body and soul. The two-dimensional “anthropologia” is articulated in “anatomia,” science of body, and “psychologia,” science of the soul. It is this new anthropology that is diffused into the world of the Reformation (Mengal, 2000/2001). The Dutch reformer Snellius (1594), for example, defines the body and the soul by their respective essential property: “The rational soul of man is the thought that, coupled with the body, completes man. (…) The physical things closer to natural bodies that move naturally, have an extension and for that reason occupy a space. (…) The faculty of the rational soul is the mind or will. Thought is the faculty of the soul to discourse and think about things which are and which are not.”1 (Snellius, 1594, pp. 26–27). It is as a philosopher that René Descartes proposes his dualist vision much in line with the reformist opinions. Descartes dissects animals and human cadavers and is familiar with the research on the flow of blood (Fuchs, 2001). He comes to the conclusion that the body is a complex device that is capable of moving without the soul, thus contradicting the Aristotelian doctrine of the soul. The metaphysical order, which states that the body exists by the soul, is broken. (shrink)

Around the middle of XVI th century, in the Florence of Grand Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, Bernardo Segni (Firenze, 1504–1558) translated and commented some Aristotelian works in the Florentine vernacular. His works represents a very important innovation in the panorama of Italian Aristotelianism, because they are the product of circles outside the university world and are the first attempt to translate in Italian the works of the great Greek philosopher. In this paper, I’ll examine some aspects of his (...) works, in particular of his translation of Nicomachean Ethics. (shrink)

To the extent that dualism is even taken to be a serious option in contemporary discussions of personal identity and the philosophy of mind, it is almost exclusively either Cartesian dualism or property dualism that is considered. The more traditional dualism defended by Aristotelians and Thomists, what I call hylemorphic dualism, has only received scattered attention. In this essay I set out the main lines of the hylemorphic dualist position, with particular reference to personal identity. First I argue that overemphasis (...) of the problem of consciousness has had an unhealthy effect on recent debate, claiming instead that we should emphasize the concept of form. Then I bring in the concept of identity by means of the notion of substantial form. I continue by analyzing the relation between form and matter, defending the traditional theses of prime matter and of the unicity of substantial form. I then argue for the immateriality of the substantial form of the human person, viz. the soul, from an account of the human intellect. From this follows the soul's essential independence of matter. Finally, although the soul is the immaterial bearer of personal identity, that identity is still the identity of an essentially embodied being. I explain how these ideas are to be reconciled. Footnotesa I am grateful to Stephen Braude, John Cottingham, John Haldane, David Jehle, Joel Katzav, Eduardo Ortiz, and Fred Sommers for helpful comments and discussion of a draft of this essay. I would also like to thank Ellen Paul, whose suggestions have helped greatly to improve the essay's style and content. (shrink)

Aristotle's cognitive ideal is a form of understanding that requires a sophisticated grasp of scientific first principles. At the end of the Analytics, Aristotle tells us that we learn these principles by induction. But on the whole, commentators have found this an implausible claim: induction seems far too basic a process to yield the sort of knowledge Aristotle's account requires. In this paper I argue that this criticism is misguided. I defend a broader reading of Aristotelian induction, on (...) which there's good sense to be made of the claim that we come to grasp first principles inductively, and show that this reading is a natural one given Aristotle's broader views on scientific learning. (shrink)

The Neoplatonic commentaries on Aristotle’s works have always been considered somehow suspicious. That is partly related to the doctrinal commitments of the commentators, partly with the hermeneutical strategies to which they seem to recur. Both of these reasons have also give place to the accusation of distortion and misunderstanding of Aristotle’s philosophy. In the following paper I want to perform an exercise of disclosing the hermeneutical procedure that one of this commentators applies to one of the passages of (...) the first book of the De Anima. The commentator is Philoponus, the passage is the refutation of the soul-harmony theory. My aim is to show that, despite the doctrinal commitments that the commentator may have, his methodology follows Aristotelian guidelines. I hope that this could open perspectives on the value that the commentators must have as philosophers, rather than merely interpreters or paraphrasers. (shrink)

This paper is an expanded written version of my reply to Rosanna Keefe’s paper ‘Modelling higher-order vagueness: columns, borderlines and boundaries’ (Keefe 2015), which in turn is a reply to my paper ‘Columnar higher-order vagueness, or Vagueness is higher-order vagueness’ (Bobzien 2015). Both papers were presented at the Joint Session of the the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association in July, 2015. At the Joint Session meeting, there was insufficient time to present all of my points in response to (...) Keefe’s paper. In addition, the audio of the session, which is available online, becomes inaudible at the beginning of my reply to Keefe’s comments due to a technical defect. The following is a full version of my remarks. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article studies the theory of animal seeds as purely material entities in the early seventeenth-century medical writings of Antonio Ponce Santacruz, royal physician to the Spanish king Philipp IV. Santacruz adopts the theory of the eduction of substantial forms from the potentiality of matter, according to which new kinds of causal powers can arise out of material composites of a certain complexity. Santacruz stands out among the late Aristotelian defenders of eduction theory because he applies the concept (...) of an instrument of direction developed by the medieval Avicenna commentator Gentile da Foligno and gives a novel turn to this concept by interpreting animal seeds as separate instruments. The article situates Santacruz's theory in the context of early modern debates about the concept of the eduction of forms, as well as in the context of early modern debates about the concept of separate instruments. Particular attention is paid to Santacruz's responses to the biological views of Julius Caesar Scaliger and Thomas Feyens. Santacruz's response to Scaliger turns out to be central for his explication of the eduction relation, and Santacruz's response to Feyens turns out to be central for his explication of the nature of instrumental causation. (shrink)

The Earth is positioned at the center of the universe in the Ptolemaic model of the universe. The center of the Earth is at the same time the center of the universe in this model. This system, which was constructed according to Aristotelian physics, was accepted as the prevailing theory up to the adoption of the heliocentric universal model in the 16th century. The Earth was at the same time assumed to be completely stationary in the geocentric theory. Movement (...) around its own axis or around another celestial body was out of the question for it. In Antiquity and the Middle Ages when observational instruments like the telescope were not yet in use, this theory was seen to be rationally based on data obtained directly from the senses. In this context, various justifications had been provided about the world being stationary and existing at the center. Representatives from the Peripatetic philosophy in the Muslim world also were seen to accept the geocentric model. In The Book of Healing, Ibn Sīnā (d. 1038 CE) subjected the proofs that had come to him about the Earth being stationary by distinguishing an independent chapter. The 14th century follower of Ibn Sīnā’s philosophy, Najm al-Dīn al-Kātibī addressed this topic in Ḥikmat al-‘ain, and the work’s principle commentators also commented on his assessments. This study will address Ibn Sīnā’s assessments on the Earth being stationary in the geocentric model of the universe and will discuss the reflections of these assessments in Ḥikmat al-‘ain as an Avicennan text. (shrink)

As a first stab, call a property recurrent if it can be possessed by more than one object, and nonrecurrent if it can be possessed by at most one object. The question whether Aristotle holds that there are nonrecurrent properties has spawned a lively and ongoing debate among commentators over the last forty-five years. One source of textual evidence in the Categories, drawn on in this debate, is Aristotle’s claim that certain properties are inseparable from what they are in. (...) Here the point of contention is whether this commits Aristotle to holding that these properties are inseparable from individuals, since it is commonly held that a property is nonrecurrent, if it is inseparable from an individual. I argue that this evidence is neutral on the question whether there are nonrecurrent properties in Aristotle. One of my aims here is to disentangle the question of recurrence from local issues of individuality and universality in the Categories. But another aim is to turn from the textual considerations, which have dominated the debate, to broader methodological considerations. It is a shared assumption among all those who look to textual evidence from the Categories, so to decide whether Aristotle believes there are nonrecurrent properties, that in this work Aristotle is engaged in a project where the question of recurrence is relevant. I argue that Aristotle’s concerns in the Categories are disjoint from the question of recurrence, and so this shared assumption is false. (shrink)

According to the Cambridge Platonist Henry More, individual spirits--the souls of humans and non-human animals--are extended but cannot be physically divided. His contemporaries and recent commentators have charged that More has never given an explication of the grounds on which the indivisibility of spirits is based. In this article, I suggest that exploring the usage that More makes of the analogy between spirits and light could go some way towards providing such an explication. More compares the relation between spirit (...) and matter to the relation that, according to Aristotelian theories of light, holds between ?intentional species? and matter. I will argue that the purpose of his comparison is to highlight that both intentional species and spirits are existentially independent from matter. The existential independence of intentional species from matter expresses itself in the fact that light is not moved through the motion of the illuminated body. The existential independence of spirits from matter expresses itself in the fact that when a body that is coextensive with a spirit is divided, the spirit is not thereby divided but rather contracts into the remaining living organism. (shrink)

Heidegger’s debt to Aristotle is, of course, vast: Volpi went so far as to ask whether Being and Time was a translation of the Nicomachean Ethics. In this chapter, I want to investigate a fundamental divergence between the two, a rejection by early Heidegger of one of the central tenets of Aristotelian ethics. This rejection begins in the years before Being and Time and the forces behind it extend into the post-war period. I will focus in particular on Ga18, (...) 1924’s Basic Concepts of Aristotelian Philosophy: what Heidegger’s Aristotle rejects there, in effect, is the notion of character. -/- What makes this rejection so complex and so revealing is that Heidegger’s interpretative approach forces him to present disagreement as discovery, as an insight into a true Aristotle who has remained concealed. My claim here is not the familiar one that Heideggerian history of philosophy is exegetically ‘violent’ or that it frequently tells us more about Heidegger than about its supposed target. Rather, it is more specific. Texts such as Basic Concepts of Aristotelian Philosophy present a unique exegetical situation. This is because Heidegger lacks several of the interpretative tools that will justify his radical reading of Kant just a few years later: I will examine in particular his changing conception of “philology”. The result is that, whilst commentators routinely talk of Heidegger’s “appropriation” of Kant, Heidegger’s early use of Aristotle is simultaneously more complex and less refined. “Perversion” is, one might think, scarcely a rigorous term, but it is, I will argue, the best description of what follows. (shrink)

One of the issues that deeply interested the philosophers of late antiquity, the Ancient Greek Commentators, concerns the priority of substances. While questions concerning ontological priority have recently attracted attention in Aristotelian scholarship and contemporary metaphysics, the Commentators’ discussions have not yet received the attention they deserve. My aim is to start to fill in this gap, by focusing on John Philoponus’s account of the priority of substances in his commentary on Aristotle’s "Categories". In particular, I aim (...) to show how Philoponus develops and defends the view that, while particular substances enjoy priority over accidents and concepts (“universals after the many”), they do not enjoy priority over all other things. Rather, a certain type of universal substance (“universals prior to the many”) enjoys priority over particulars. (shrink)

This paper aims to suggest a new approach to Plato’s theory of being in Republic V and Sophist based on the notion of difference and the being of a copy. To understand Plato’s ontology in these two dialogues we are going to suggest a theory we call Pollachos Esti; a name we took from Aristotle’s pollachos legetai both to remind the similarities of the two structures and to reach a consistent view of Plato’s ontology. Based on this theory, when Plato (...) says that something both is and is not, he is applying difference on being which is interpreted here as saying, borrowing Aristotle’s terminology, 'is is (esti) in different senses'. I hope this paper can show how Pollachos Esti can bring forth not only a new approach to Plato’s ontology in Sophist and Republic but also a different approach to being in general. -/- Keywords Plato; being; difference; image; pollachos esti; pollachos legetai 1. Being, Not-Being and Difference The three dialogues where the notion of "difference" attaches to the notion of being, namely Parmenides II, Sophist and Timaeus,and specifically the first two we try to discuss here. In these dialogues, Plato is going to achieve a new and revolutionary understanding of being which is not anymore based on the notion of "same" as it was before in Greek ontology. It was his discovery, I think, that the notion of being in the Greek ontology is attached to the notion of the "same" and it is because of this attachment that there have always been many problems understanding being especially after Parmenides. That being has always been relying on the "same" can be found out from the way most of the Presocratics understood it. It was based on such a relationship between being and "same" that a later Ionian, Heraclitus of Ephesus, rejected Being by rejecting its sameness: unable to be the same, being cannot be being anymore but becoming. Heraclitus’ criticism of his predecessors’ understanding of being was due to his discovery that what they call being is not the same but different in every moment. The relation of being and sameness reaches to its highest point in Parmenides. What Plato does in using the "difference" is nothing but the establishment of a creative relation between being and "difference". In this new relation, although he is in agreement with Heraclitus that being is not the same but different, he does not do it by use of becoming. He disagrees, on the other hand, with Parmenides that such a relation between being and difference leads to not being. At Parmenides 142b5-6 it is said that if One is, it is not possible for it to be without partaking (μετέχειν) of being (οὐσίας), which leads to the distinction of being and one: -/- So there would be also the being of the one (ἡ οὐσία του̑ ἑνὸς) which is not the same (ταὐτὸν) as the one. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be its being, nor the one would partake of it. (142b7-c1) -/- The fact that what is (ἔστι) signifies (σημαῖνον) is other (ἀλλο) than what One signifies (c4-5), is being taken as a reason for their distinction. The conclusion is that when we say 'one is', we speak of two different things, one partaking of the other (c5-7). Having repeated these arguments of the otherness of being and one at 143a-b, Parmenides says that the cause of this otherness can be neither Being nor One but "difference": -/- So if being is something different (ἕτερον) and one something different (ἕτερον), it is not by being one that the one is different from being nor by its being being that being is other than one, but they are different from each other (ἕτερα ἀλλήλων) by difference (τῷ ἑτερῳ) and otherness (ἄλλῳ). (143b3-6) -/- The fifth hypothesis, 'one is not' (160b5ff.) is also linked with the notion of difference. When we say about two things, largeness and smallness, that they are not, it is clear that we are talking about not being of different (ἕτερον) things (160c2-4). When it is said that something is not, besides the fact that there must be knowledge of that thing, we can say that it entails also its difference: 'difference in kind pertains to it in addition to knowledge' (160d8). Parmenides explains the reason as such: -/- For someone doesn’t speak of the difference in kind of the others when he says that the one is different from the others, but of that thing’s own difference in kind. (160e1-2) -/- Although the theory of being as "difference" is not fulfilled yet, an exact look at what occurs in Sophist can make us sure that this was the launching step for "difference" to get its deserved role in Plato’s ontology. The notion of the "difference" is not yet well-functioned in Parmenides because we can see that being is still attached to the same: -/- For that which is the same is being (ὄν γὰρ ἐστι τὸ ταὐτόν) (162d2-3). -/- The notion of difference in Sophist is the key element based on which a new understanding of being is presented and the problem of not being is somehow resolved. The friends of Forms, the Stranger says, are those who distinguish between being and becoming (248a7-8) and believe that we deal with the latter with our body and through perception while with the former, the real being (ὄντως οὐσίαν) with our soul and through reasoning (a10-11). Being is then bound with the "same" by adding: -/- You say that being always stays the same and in the same state (ἣν ἀεὶ κατὰ ταὐτὰ ὡσαύτως ἔχειν) but becoming varies from one time to another (δὲ ἄλλοτε ἄλλως). (248a12-13) -/- That the theory of the relation of being and capacity (247d8f., 248c4-5) matches more with becoming than with being (248c7-9) must be rejected because being is also the subject of knowledge which is kind of doing something (248d-e). It does, however, confirm that 'both that which changes and also change have to be admitted as existing things (ὄντα) (249b2-3). I believe that this is what Socrates would incline to do at Theaetetus 180e-181a, that is, putting a fight between two parties of Parmenidean being and Heraclitean becoming and then escaping. The solution is that becoming is itself a kind of being and we ought to accept what changes as being. This is what must be done by a philosopher, namely, to refuse both the claim that 'everything is at rest' and that 'being changes in every way' and beg, like a child, for both and say being (τὸὄν) is both the unchanging and that which changes (249c10-d4). This kind of begging for both is obviously under the attack of contradiction (249e-250b). For both and each of rest and change similarly are (250a11-12) but it cannot be said either that both of them change or both of them rest, being must be considered as a third thing both of the rest and change associate with (250b7-10). The conclusion is that 'being is not both change and rest but different (ἕτερον) from them instead' (c3-4). The notion of difference helps Plato to take being departed from both rest and change because it was their sophisticated relation with being that made the opposition of being and becoming. Plato is now trying to separate being from rest and, thus, from "same" by "difference". Such a crucial change is great enough to need a 'fearless' decision (256d5-6). The possibility of being of not being is resulted (d11-12) comes as the answer to the question 'so it’s clear that change is not being and also is being (ἡ κίνησις ὄντως οὐκ ὄν ἐστι καὶ ὄν) since it partakes in being?' (d8-9). It is then by the notion of difference that becoming is considered as that which both is and is not. This coincidence of being and not being about change is apparently similar to Socrates’ paradoxical statement at Republic 477a about what both is and is not. -/- Introduction The Republic 476-477 has always been a matter of controversy mainly about two interwoven points. The first problem is the meaning of being here; that whether what he has in mind is a veridical, existential or propositional sense of being. The second problem is his distinction between the objects of knowledge and opinion which seems to lead, some believe, to the Two Worlds (TW) theory. The crucial point in Republic is that what is considered between knowledge (ἐπιστήμης) and ignorance (α͗γνοιας), namely opinion, must have a different object that leads Socrates to draw the distinction of knowledge and opinion between their objects. The problem of understanding being in the fifth book of the Republic is that when it is said that the Form of F is F but a particular participating in F, both is and is not F, it sounds too bizarre and unacceptable. It cannot be imaginable how a thing can be existent and non-existent at the same time. At the first sight, the only solution seems to be the degrees of existence which is called by Annas (1981, 197) a 'childish fallacy' and a 'silly argument'. Kirwan (1974, 118) thinks that Republic V does not attribute 'any doctrine about existence' to Plato and Kahn (1966, 250) claims that the most fundamental value of einai when used alone (without predicate) is not "to exist" but "to be so", "to be the case" or "to be true". The problems of understanding being in Republic and Sophist besides the difficulties of the existential reading led scholars to the other senses of being, mostly related to the well-known Aristotelian distinctions between different senses of being. In the predicative reading, Annas, for example, refers this difference to the qualified and unqualified application. Whereas the Form of F is unqualifiedly F, a particular instance of F can be F only qualifiedly (1981, 221). Vlastos’ well-known substitution of 'degrees of reality' for 'degrees of being/existence' must be categorized as a predicative reading. Kahn thinks that the basic sense of being for Plato is 'something like propositional structure, involving both predication and truth claims, together with existence for the subject of predication' (2013, 96). Believing that the complete-incomplete distinction terminology is misleading about Plato, he thinks that semantic functions are only second-order uses of the verb and it is the predicative or incomplete function which is fundamental. Suggesting a veridical reading, Fine (2003, 70 ff) thinks that while both existential and predicative readings separate the objects of knowledge and belief, it is only her reading which does not force such separation of the objects and thus does not imply TW. Stokes (1998, 266) thinks that though Fine is right saying that Plato does not endorse TW in book V, she is wrong in rejecting existential in favor of the veridical reading. The reception of existential reading can be seen more obviously in Calvert who thinks, in agreement with Runciman, that 'it would be safer to say that Plato’s gradational ontology is probably not entirely free from degrees of existence' (1970, 46). At Sophist 254d-e Plato singles out five most important kinds (or Forms!?) in which the same (ταὐτὸν) and difference (θάτερον) are regarded besides being, rest and change. They are, therefore, neither the same nor the difference but share in both (b3). Being (τὸ ὄν) cannot be the same also because if they 'do not signify distinct things' both change and rest will have the same label when we say they are (255b11-c1). We have then four distinct kinds, being, change, rest and same, none of them is the other. The case of difference is more complicated. When the stranger wants to assess the relation of being and difference, he can say simply neither that they are distinct nor that they are not. He has to make an important distinction inside being to get able to draw the relation of being and difference: -/- But I think you'll admit that some of the things that are (τῶν ὄντων) are said (λέγεσθαι) by themselves (αὐτὰ καθ’ αὑτά) but some [are said] always referring to (πρὸς) other things (ἄλλα) (255b12-13) -/- The difference is always said referring to other things (τὸδέγ’ ἕτερον ἀεὶ πρὸς ἕτερον) (255d1). It pervades all kinds because each of them should be different from the others and is so due to the difference and not its own nature (253e3f.) After asserting that change is different from being and therefore both is and is not (256d), the difference is described as what makes all the other kinds not be, by making each different from being. Given that all of them are by being, this association of being and difference is the cause of their being and not-being at the same time, the issue that its version at RepublicV made all those controversies we discussed above: -/- So in the case of change and all the kinds, not being necessarily is (Ἔστιν ἄρα ἐξ ἀναγκης τὸ μὴ ὄν). Τhat’s because as applied to all of them, the nature of the difference (ἡ θατέρον φύσις) makes each of them not be by making it different from being. And we’re going to be right if we say that all of them are not in the same way. And conversely [we’re also going to be right if we say] that they are because they partake in being. (Sophist 256d11-e3) -/- Plato’s new construction of five distinct kinds and the role he gives to thedifference among them is aimed to resolve the old problem of understanding being which has always been annoying from the time of Heraclitus and Parmenides. Both the ontological status of becoming and that of not being were, in Plato’s mind, based on the absolute domination of the notion of the Same over being. Now, not only becoming is understandable as being but also not being which is not the contrary of being anymore but only different (ἕτερον) (257b3-4). Though I agree partly with Frede that the account of not being which is needed for false statements is more complicated than just saying, as Cropsey (1995, 101) says, that Plato is substituting 'X is not Y' with 'X is different from Y', I totally disagree with him that when we say X is not beautiful, Plato could not have thought that it is not a matter of its being different from beautiful because 'it would be different from beauty even if it were beautiful by participation in beauty' (1992, 411). Conversely, as we will discuss, it is exactly the relation of the beautiful thing, X, and the beautiful itself, in which X shares that is to be solved by the notion of not being as difference. Though it is beautiful because of sharing in beauty, X is not beautiful because it is different from beautiful itself. What the difference is to do is to show how something can both be and not be the same thing. The difference is what makes one thing both be and not be a certain other thing. This equips the difference with the ability to explain a certain thing’s not-being when it is. Thanks to the notion of difference, it is now possible to explain not only not being but also the simultaneous being and not being of a thing: 'What we call "not-beautiful" is the thing that ἕτερόν ἐστιν from nothing other than του̑ καλου̑ φύσεως' (257d10-11). The result is that not beautiful happens to be (συμβέβηκεν εἶναι) one single thing among kinds of beings (τι τῶν ὄντων τινὸς ἑνὸς γένους) and at the same time set over against one of the beings (πρός τι τῶν ὄντων αὖ πάλιν ἀντιτεθὲν) (257e2-4) and thus be something that happens to be not beautiful (εἶναί τις συμβαίνει τὸ μὴ καλόν); a being set over against being (ὄντος δὴ πρὸς ὄν ἀντίθεσις) (e6-7). Neither the beautiful is more a being (μα̑λλον ... ἐστι τῶν ὄντων) nor not beautiful less (e9-10) and thus both the contraries similarly are (ὁμοίως εἶναι) (258a1). This conclusion, it is emphasized again (a7-9), owes to θατέρου φύσις now turned out as being. Therefore, each of the many things that are of the nature of the difference and set over each other in being (τῆς τοῦ ὄντος πρὸς ἄλληλα ἀντικειμένων ἀντίθεσις) is being as being itself is being (αὐτοῦ τοῦὄν τοςοὐσία ἐστιν) and not less. They are different from, and not the contrary of, each other (a11-b3). This is exactly τὸμὴὄν, the subject of the inquiry (b6-7). Hence, not being has its own nature (b10) and is one εἶδοςamong the many things that are (b9-c3). Such far departing from Parmenides’ ontological principle is done on the basis of the nature of the difference. It was the discovery of such a notion that made the stranger brave enough to say that not being is each part of the nature of the difference that is set over against being (258d7-e3, cf. 260b7-8). That the relation of being and difference is difference is the key element of the new ontology. The difference is, only because of its sharing in being, but it is not that which it shares in but different from it (259a6-8). Not being is exactly based on this difference: ἕτερον δὲ τοῦ ὄντος ὄν ἔστι σαφέστατα ἐξ ἀνάγκης εἶναι μὴ ὄν (a8-b1). 2. Difference and the Being of a Copy We discussed above that the sense of being of particulars in Republic V made so many debates that whether being is there used in an existential sense or not. Particulars in Republic are regarded as images in the allegories of Line and Cave. The being of an image/copy makes, thus, the same problem. Plato’s analogy of original -copy for the relation of Forms and their particulars in Republic has obviously a different attitude to being. The main question is that what is the ontological status of a copy in respect of its original? Are there two kinds of being, 'real being' versus 'being' as Ketchum says (1980, 140) or only one kind? What is the difference of being in an original and its copy? Is it a matter of degrees of being or reality as some commentators have suggested? Is it a matter of being relational? By reducing the ontological issue to an epistemological one, Vlastos’ suggestion of degrees of reality in an article with the same name does neither, I think, pay attention to the problem nor resolve it. He agrees that Plato never speaks of "degrees" or "grades" of reality (1998, 219). What allows him to entitle it as such are some of Plato’s words in Republic as well as Plato’s words in some other dialogues (1998, 219). When Plato states that the Forms only can completely, purely or perfectly be real he means, Vlastos says, they are cognitively reliable (1998, 229); an obvious reduction of the issue to an epistemological one. He thinks that when in Republic we are being said that a particular’s being F is less pure than its Form, it is because it is not exclusively F, but it is and is not F and this being adulterated by contrary characters is the reason of our confused and uncertain understanding of it (1998, 222). Ketchum rightly criticizes Vlastos’ doctrine in its disparting from ontology thinking that 'to understand Plato’s talk of being as talk of reality is to obscure the close relation that exists between "being" and the verb "to be"' (1980, 213). He thinks, therefore, that οὐσία must be understοοd as being rather than reality, τὸὄν as "that which is" and not "that which is real" and … (ibid). His conclusion is that degrees of reality cannot interpret Plato correctly and we must accept degrees of being. Allen believes that a 'purely epistemic' reading of the passage in Republic is patently at odds with Plato’s text (1961, 325). He thinks that not only degrees of reality but also degrees of reality must be maintained (1998, 67). What Cooper suggests gets close to this paper’s solution: -/- Plato does not I think wish to suggest that existence is a matter of degree in the way in which being pleasant or painful is a matter of degree. Rather there are different grades of ontological status. (1986, 241) -/- A more ontological solution for the problem of understanding the being of a copy and its relation with the being of its original is suggested by the theory of copy as a relational entity. Based on this interpretation, 'the very being of a reflection is relational, wholly dependent upon what is other than itself: the original…' (Allen, 1998, 62). As relational entities, particulars have no independent ontological status; they are purely relational entities which derive their whole character and existence from Forms (ibid, 67). Although these relational entities are and have a kind of existence, we must also say that 'they do not have existence in the way that Forms, things which are fully real, do' (ibid). Allen (1961, 331) extends his theory to Phaedo where it is said that particulars are deficient (74d5-7, 75a2-3, 75b4-8), 'wish' to be like (74d10) or desire to be of its nature (75a2); an extension that, like F.C. white (1977, 200), I cannot admit. He correctly states that Plato did not start out with a doctrine of particulars as images and semblances but come to such a view after Phaedo, or perhaps after Republic V (1977, 202). Though we may not agree with him about Republic V, if we have to consider its last pages also, we must agree with him that not only the ontology of Phaedo but also that of Republic II-V (except the last pages of the latter book) are somehow different from (but at the same time appealing to) the ontology of original-copy which should exclusively assign to Sophist, Timaeus and RepublicVI-VII besides the last pages of book V. The answer to the problem of Plato’s sense of being in RepublicV can be reached only if we read Republic V based on and as following Sophist. We can find out his meaning of that which both is and is not only by the ontological status he assigns to a copy in Sophist. The kind of being of a copy in Sophist reveals as Plato’s key for the lock of the problem of not being. Let’s see how the ontological status of a copy is the critical point of Plato’s ontology. In the earlier pages of Sophist, we are still in the same situation about not being. To think that that which is not is is called a rash assumption (237a3-4) and Parmenides’ principle of the impossibility of being of not being is still at work (a8-9). At 237c1-4, the problem of "not being" is noticed in a new way which shows some kinds of a more realistic position to the problem of not being. Nevertheless, not being is still unthinkable, unsayable, unutterable and unformulable in speech (238c10). Soon after mentioning that it is difficult even to refuse not being (238d), the solution to the problem appears: the being of a copy (εἴδωλον) (239d). A copy is, says Theaetetus, something that is made referring to a true thing (πρὸς τἀληθινὸν) but still is 'another such thing (ἕτεροντοιου̑τον)' (240a8). Nevertheless, this 'another such thing' cannot be another such real or true thing. In answer to the question of the Stranger that if this 'another such thing' is the true thing (240a9), Theaetetus answers: οὐδαμῶς ἀληθινόν γε, ἀλλ’ ἐοικὸςμὲν (240b2). A copy’s being 'another such thing' does not mean another true thing but only a resemblance of it. Not only is not a copy another true thing besides the original, but it is the opposite of the true thing (b5) because only its original is the thing genuinely and being a copy is being the thing only untruly. The word ἐοικὸς is opposed to ὄντως ὄν in the next line (240b7): 'So you are saying that that which is like (ἐοικὸς) is not really that which is (οὐκ ὄντως [οὐκ] ὄν)'. But still a copy 'is in a way (ἔστι γε μήν πως)' (b9). While it is not really what it is its resemblance, it has its own being and reality because it really is a likeness (εἰκων ὄντως) (b11). The Stranger asks: -/- So it is not really what is (οὐκ ὄν ἄρα [οὐκ] ὄντως ἐστὶν) but it really is what we call a likeness (ὄντως ἣν λέγομεν εἰκόνα)? (b12-13) -/- This is Plato’s innovative ontological solution to the problem of not being. Theaetetus’ answer confirms this: 'Maybe that which is not is woven together with that which is' (c1-2). Therefore, a copy neither is what really is nor is not-being but only is what in a way is. Thanks to the ontological status of a copy, the third status intermediate between being and not being is brought forth. The essence of an image, in Kohnke’s words, does not consist 'solely in the negation of what is genuine and has real being' because otherwise 'it would be an ὄντως οὐκ ὄν,essentially and really a not being' (1957, 37). The characteristics of a copy can be summed up as folows: i) A copy is a copy by referring to a true thing (πρὸς τἀληθινὸν). ii) A copy is different from that of which it is a copy (ἕτερον). iii) A copy is not itself a true thing (ἀληθινόν) as that of which it is a copy but only that which is like it (ἐοικὸς). iv) It is not really that which really is (ὄντως ὄν) but only really a likeness (εἰκων ὄντως). The conclusion is that: v) A copy in a way (πως) is that means it both is and in not, the product of interweaving being with not being. This leads to the refutation of father Parmenides’ principle, accepting that 'that which is not somehow is (τό τε μὴ ὄν ὡς ἔστι)' and 'that which is, somehow is not (τό ὄν ὡς οὐκ ἔστι) (241d5-7). Besides copies and likenesses (εἰκόνων), we have also imitations (μιμημάτων) and appearances (φαντασμάτων) as the subjects of this new kind of being and thus false belief (241e3). In Timaeus, the world of becoming which cannot correctly be called and thus we have to call it "what is such" (τὸ τοιου̑τον) (49e5) or "what is altogether such" (τὸ διἀ παντὸς τοιου̑τον) (e6-7), consists solely of imitations (μιμημάτα) (50c5) which are identifiable only by the things that they are their imitations. The word τοιου̑τον which had been used to determine the situation of a copy in respect of its original, now becomes the definition of the world of becoming in which everything is an image of another thing, a Being, that stays always the same and is different and separated from its image. Cherniss, in my view rightly, draws attention to the very important point about the ontological status of an image that can at the same time be considered a criticism of the relational theory. What we are being said in Timaeus, he thinks,cannot be explained by saying that an image is not self-related and making its being relational. What is crucial about an image is that it 'stands for something, refers to something, means something and this meaning the image has not independently as its own but only in reference to something else apart from it' (1998, 296). This function finds its best explanation in the theory we are to suggest in the following. 3. πολλαχῶς ἔστι The best way to understand the ontological status of an image in Plato is to see first how his most clever pupil, Aristotle, resolved the same problem that Plato brought his theory of image for its sake. Aristotle’s theory of pollachos legetai is a brilliant and, at the same time, deviated version of Plato’s theory that is able, however, to help us read Plato in a better way. We discuss Aristotle’s theory to reach to a full understanding of Plato’s theory because it is, firstly, constructed in Aristotle in a more clear way and, secondly, it can also be taken as an evidence that our reading of Plato is legitimate. The phrase τὸ ὄν πολλαχῶς λέγεται, a so much repeated phrase in Aristotle’s works, is his resolution for some of the ontological problems of his predecessors all treating being as if it has only one sense. Aristotle is right in his criticism of the philosophical tradition specially Heraclitus, Parmenides and Plato since all did presuppose only one sense for being and his theory is, thus, a creative and revolutionary solution for many problems that all the past philosophers were stuck in. But it is at the same time somehow a borrowed theory. As we will discuss, both the structure of the doctrine and the problems it tries to resolve are the same as Plato’s doctrine (and even is comparable in its phraseology) though it is in Aristotle, as can be expected, a more clear and better structured doctrine. 1) Associated with the theory of pros hen and the theory of substance, the theory of several senses of being provides a structure which, I insist, is the best guide to understand Plato’s theory of Being in Sophist, Timeaus and Republic. a) Although the theory of pollachos legetai is not necessarily based on the theory of pros hen, they become tightly interdependent about being: -/- Being is said in many ways/senses (τὸ δὲ ὄν λέγεται μὲν πολλαχῶς) but by reference to one (πρὸς ἕν) [way/sense] and one kind of nature (μίαν τινὰ φύσιν). (Metaphysics 1003a33-34) -/- The doctrine of pros hen which is Aristotle’s initiative third alternative besides the homonymous and synonymous application of words, is primarily a linguistic theory that tries to provide a new theory to explain the different implementations of the same word. The pros hen implementation of being is to provide an alternative for the theory of the synonymous (in Plato: homonymous) implementation of being which says being is said in one sense (kath hen) (1060b 32-33). That both the pros hen and the kath hen implementation of a word has one thing (hen) as what is common, makes them in opposition to the homonymous implementation which does not consider anything in common. Whereas both pros hen and kath hen assume a common nature, with which all the implementations of the word have some kind of relation, their difference is that while kath hen takes all the implementations of the word as the same with the common nature, pros hen makes them different. Substance is called πρῶτον ὄν because it is said to be primarily: -/- For as is (τὸ ἔστιν) is predicated of all things, not however in the same way (οὐχ ὁμοίως) but of one sort of thing primarily and of others in a secondary way. So too τὸτί ἐστιν belongs simply (ἁπλῶς) to substance but in a limited sense (πῶς) to the others [other categories] (1030a21-23). -/- The word ἁπλῶς standing against κατὰ συμβεβηκός tries to make substance different from the accidents. When we are being said that τὸ ὄν πολλαχῶς λέγεται, it means that only the substance that is simply (ἁπλῶς) the ἕν, the common nature, τὸὄν. When we use the word 'being' about a substance, the being is said differently from when we use 'being' about an accident. The distinction between the substance and the other categories is a distinction between what simply is said to be and what only with reference to (pros) the substance is said to be. The doctrine of pros hen, changing kath hen to pros hen in respect of to on, makes a distinction that wants to show that while there is a kind of implementing the word being that is simply being, there is another kind which is called being only by reference to that which is simply being. In the doctrine of pros hen it is not so that all the things that are said to be are only by reference to a common one thing, but that while one thing is called being because it is that thing itself, the other things are called so without being that thing itself but only by referring to it. At the very beginning of book Γ, it is said that: -/- Being is said in many senses but all refer to one arche. Some things are said to be because they are substances, others because they are affections of substances, others because they are a process towards substances or destructions or privations or qualities of substances … (1003b5-9, cf. 1028a18-20) -/- Substance is what really is said to be and all other things that are said to be are said only in favor of it. This difference of substance from all other senses of being is what is, I believe, primarily aimed in Aristotle’s interrelated theories of pollachos legetai,pros hen and the theory of substance. b) The difference of the implementation of being in the case of substance and the accidents goes so deep that while substance is considered as the real being, the accidents are almost not being. An accident is a mere name (Metaphysics 1026b13-14) and is obviously akin to not being (b21). Aristotle adds that Plato was 'in a sense not wrong' saying that sophists deal with not being (τὸ μὴ ὄν) because the arguments of sophists are, above all, about the accidental (1026b13-16). At the beginning of book , he says about quality and quantity (which look to be more of a being than other accidents) that they are not existent (οὐδ̕ ὄντα ὡς εἰπεῖν) in an unqualified sense (ἁπλῶς) (1069a21-22). The two above-mentioned points, Aristotle’s (a) interwoven theories of pollachos legetai, pros hen and the theory of substance and (b) taking accidents almost as not being, comparedwith substance, brings forth a structure that I shall call Pollachos Legetai (with capital first letters). What is of the highest importance in this structure for me is the difference of substance from accidents and the kind of relation which is settled between them. There is a substance that without any qualification is said to be and the accidents that are said to be only by reference (pros) to it. Adding Aristotle’s point about accidents that they are nearly not being to this relation and difference, we can obviously see how much this structure is close to Plato’s original-copy ontology. We spoke of the relation of being and difference in Plato’s model and the way Plato construes the being of a copy. A copy is a copy only by referring to (pros) a model; it is different from (ἕτερον) that of which it is a copy; it is not itself a true thing as its model and not really that which is (ὄντως ὄν) but only is in a way (πῶς). If we behold the difference of substance and accident in the context of the theory of pollachos legetai and pros hen, we can observe its fundamental similarity with Plato’s original-copy theory in its structure. Allen draws attention to the fact that the relation between Forms and particulars in Plato’s original-copy model is 'something intermediate between univocity and full equivocity' (1998, 70, n. 24) and the same as what Aristotle calls it pros hen (ibid). What made us compare the two structures was not, of course, the complete similarity of two structures (we have to agree with many possible differences of the two theories) but exactly the specific relation between an original and its copy on the one hand, and a substance and its accident on the other hand. As substance and accident do not share a common character and the substance -accident model hints that they stand in a certain relation, there is no common character between the original and copy in Plato’s model as well. Furthermore, their similarity is not confined to their structure only; they are also aimed to solve the same problem. The central point of the theory is that all the predecessors took being in one sense and this was their weakness point. Besides the mentioned above passages about the relation of pollachos legetai and presocratics’, as well as Plato’s, ontology, the relation of the theory with the problem of not being is clear in several passages. In Metaphysics, it is said: 'Being is then said in many senses… It is for this reason that we say even of not being that it is not being' (1003b5-10). Discussing the accidental sense of being, Aristotle points that it is in the accidental way that we say, for example, that not-white is because that of which it is an accident is (1017a18-19, cf. 1069a22-24). We mentioned that he thought Plato was right saying that sophistic deals with not being because sophistic deals with accidental, which is somehow not being (1026b14-16). Plato turned sophistic not-being to what both is and is not and Aristotle to what accidentally is said to be. What helps Aristotle to resolve the problem of not being is his distinction between ἁπλῶς and κατὰ σθμβεβηκός. Aristotle’s "qua" (ᾕ) which is directly linked with his distinction between καθ’ αὑτο λέγεται and κατὰ συμβεβηκός λέγεται, is used to resolve the old problem of coming to be out of not being (Physics 191b4-10). He strictly asserts that his predecessors could not solve the problem because they failed to observe the distinction of "qua itself" from "qua another thing" (b10-13). He then continues: -/- We ourselves are in agreement with them in holding that nothing can be said simply (ἁπλως) to come from not being (μὴὄντος). But nevertheless we maintain that a thing may come to be from not being in an accidental way (κατὰ συμβεβηκός). For from privation which ὅ ἐστι καθ’ αὑτο μὴ ὄν, nothing can become. (Phy. 191b13-16, cf. b19-25) . (shrink)

This paper argues for a re-evaluation of the relationship between Berkeley and his predecessor, the neo-Aristotelian thinker John Sergeant. In the literature to date, the relationship between these two thinkers has received attention for two reasons. First, because some commentators have attempted to establish a causal connection between them – specifically, by focusing on the fact that both thinkers develop a theory of ‘notions’. Second, because both Berkeley and Sergeant develop ‘anti-representationalist’ arguments against Locke’s epistemology. The first issue (...) has received much greater attention, particularly from commentators seeking an explanation for Berkeley’s use of the term ‘notion’. Only one scholar, G. A. Johnston (in 1923), has considered Berkeley and Sergeant’s anti-representationalism in any depth. In this paper, I argue that the weight given to the causal connection between Berkeley and Sergeant’s ‘notions’ is misplaced since the evidence in favour of this connection is weaker than is usually acknowledged. Instead, I build on Johnston’s analysis of the conceptual connection between Berkeley and Sergeant’s anti-representationalism. I first corroborate Johnston’s claim that there are striking similarities between their criticisms of Locke before going beyond that analysis by identifying two important similarities between their anti-representationalist arguments. (shrink)

Few elements of Aristotle’s practical philosophy have been more discussed than the so-called “practical syllogism”. But there are also few as suggestive to the commentators as this one. In this article I intend to define what the theory of practical syllogism would consist in, as a separated element within the Aristotelian ethical theory (or, more precise-ly, within his theory of action). It is not properly a demonstration of the existence of such a theory, but rather of the possibility (...) that it can take its place, even a necessary one, into the Stagirite’s general theory of action, in spite of some difficulties that I try to solve. This conclusion is reached through an analysis of the main elements of this theory. (shrink)

Hylomorphism and related to it classical concept of the human soul—understood as a substantial form of the human being—are traditionally supported and commented on by the followers of the Aristotelian-Thomistic thought, both in its classical and contemporary approach. At the same time, hylomorphism has recently found a new group of followers, coming from the circles of analytic metaphysics, unrelated to the classical school of thought. This article strives to answer the question of the relation of the new, analytic versions (...) of hylomorphism to its classical definition. Moreover, it also analyzes their application in the debate concerning the mind-body problem in philosophy of mind, as well as the question of their reference to the concept of the human soul. It seems that the mereological and structural reinterpretation of the material and the formal causes departs considerably from the classical definition of hylomorphism. Moreover, the suggestion of William Jaworski – who argues in favor of the new hylomorphism in the mind-body debate – to define mental phenomena as “structured manifestations of powers” belonging to the parts of human body, not only raises some serious metaphysical concerns, but also seems to leave no “space” for the classical concept of human soul. These difficulties notwithstanding, one should appreciate an attempt of the proponents of the new analytic hylomorphism at finding an alternative to the extreme positions of substance or property dualism and eliminative or reductionist materialism in the contemporary discussion concerning the mind-body problem. (shrink)

The Catena aurea entium of Henry of Herford is part of the work of re-elaboration of Aristotle’s natural-philosophical corpus, which characterised the European intellectual environment in the Late Middle Ages. In the central books of his encyclopaedia, Henry comments on the works of natural philosophy of Albert the Great, placing himself in continuity with the cultural project started by Albert in Cologne. The present article aims to compare the 5th book of the Catena aurea entium, which consists of a comment (...) per modum quaestionis on the Meteora of Albert the Great, with some meteorological quaestiones composed between the 13th and 15th centuries. This analysis will lead me to grasp the philosophical orientations and interpretation of Henry and also his reception of Albert the Great’s meteorology. In the 5th book, Henry introduces an extensive medical section taken from the pseudo-Aristotelian Problemata, in which he applies the Galenic medical principles to meteorology. Besides, in the quaestio 105 (V 1 105), he interprets Albert through the theological-poetic explanation of ancient origins on the sacrality of the number three and an excerpt from the Liber proverbiorum. (shrink)

This article shows the origin of the famous Aristotelian expression τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι in everyday language. The expression is analysable in τὸ εἶναι and τί ἦν, and this part is the core of the common language question τουτὶ τί ἦν; or τουτὶ τί ἦν τὸ πρᾶγμα; always in imperfect form. This question is often found in Aristophanes’ comedies, which represent common Attic language. The imperfect ἦν is noted as a common Attic form indicating the present already by early (...) comentators of Aristotle as Alexander of Aphrodisias, the scholia to Aristophanes, later by Budaeus, but also in the modern Greek Lexikon of D. Demetrakos. Therefore not the imperfect is the problem, by mere embarrassement it was called "philosophic." The situations in the Aristophanean comedies, in which the question occurs, show that the thing about which somebody asks, is present, in front of the speaker, that it is an individual thing and something absolutly unexspected. The questioner will ask "What on the whole is this?" He asks about the first ground of being of the thing. The term τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι quotes only the use of εἶναι in this question in common language (like many other terms are quotations as τὸ τί ἐστίν; τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα etc.) and may be paraphrased by "Think of ’to be’ as you use it in the question ’What at all is this?’ " See also my article: Sonderegger (2001). Zur Sprachform des Ausdrucks to ti en einai. Rheinisches Museum Für Philologie 144:113–122. -/- The consequences of this linguistic finding can be found in my comments on Metaphysik Z and Metaphysics Λ (English version from 2020). (shrink)

Predication is a lingual relation. We have this relation when a term is said (λέγεται) of another term. This simple definition, however, is not Aristotle’s own definition. In fact, he does not define predication but attaches his almost in a new field used word κατηγορεῖσθαι to λέγεται. In a predication, something is said of another thing, or, more simply, we have ‘something of something’ (ἓν καθ᾿ ἑνὸς). (PsA. , A, 22, 83b17-18) Therefore, a relation in which two terms are posited (...) to each other in a way that one is said (predicated) of the other is a predication. The term of which the other term is said is called a subject (ὑποκειμένον) and the other, which is said about the subject, is called the predicate. Thus, in a predication the predicate is predicated of the subject; given that being predicated is almost as the same as being said. The relation between being said and being predicated is so close that ‘if something is said of a subject both its name and its definition are necessarily predicated of the subject.’ (Cat., 5, 2a19-26) This, however, is true only about the second genera and not the accidents. a) Nature of relation in predication What is Aristotle’s theory about the nature of the relation in a predication? How does he fundamentally understand this relation? Phil Corkum distinguishes between predication logic and traditional term logic and argues that the relation between subject and predicate in Aristotle is of the latter kind. While in predicate logic, subjects and predicates have distinct roles, they have the same role in traditional term logic. In predication logic, subjects refer, but predicates characterize. Thereupon, a sentence expresses a truth if the object to which the subject refers is correctly characterized by the predicate. In traditional term logic, both subjects and predicates refer and a sentences expresses a truth if both name one and the same thing. He concludes that Aristotle ‘problematically conflates prediction and identity claims’ because while he thinks both subjects and predicates refer, he would deny that a sentence is true just in case the subject and the predicate name one and the same thing. Based on this, Corkum believes that Aristotle’s core semantic is not identity but the weaker relation of constitution, which is a mereological interpretation: ‘All men are mortal’ is true just in case the mereological sum of humans is part of the mereological sum of mortals. b) Aristotle’s theory of predication: one or two theories? Frank Lewis finds an inconsistent gap between the theory of predication in the Categories and that in the later books of the Metaphysics VII, 6. So too Joan Kung, Terry Irwin, Daniel Graham. c) Distinction of ‘being said of’ and ‘being in’ Owen enumerates the texts in which Aristotle’s distinction between ‘being said of’ and ‘being in’ is asserted: OI. 11b38-12a17; To., 127b1-4; Cat. 1a20-b9; 2a11-14; 2a27-b6; 2b15-17; 3a7-32; 9b22-24 d) Predication in Aristotle and the standard ‘S is P’ Marie De Rijk Lambertus thinks that the ‘S is P’ pattern is misleading when it comes to express predication in Aristotle. In his view, ‘The Aristotelian procedure should be described in terms of appositively assigning an attribute (κατηγορούμενον) to a substrate (ὑποκείμενον), rather than ascribing a predicate to a subject by means of a copula…. The comment should be considered an attribute which is said to fall to a substrate, without understanding this procedure in terms of sentence predication.’ e) Aristotle’s predication: bipartite or tripartite? It is a difficulty to make Aristotle’s theories of name-verb predication and tripartite predication consistent. The reason is that tripartite is not consistant with his name-verb structure based on which he says that the predicate term is the ‘verb.’ (20a31; 20b1-2; 16a13-5) The problem is that in a tripartite form like ‘Socrates is white’ we cannot take ‘is white’ as the verb because, based on Aristotle himself, no part of a verb can be significant itself. (16b6-7) However, his assertions about the equivalences between the two structures (OI. 12, 21b9-10; PrA. 51b13-16; Met., 1017b22-30) must mean that they are not inconsistent in his own view. Thus, as Allen Bāck points, ‘Aristotle seems to think that he has a single, consistent theory.’ The sense of saying or speaking as the root sense of rhema makes the relation between predication (saying something of something) and verb more interesting. The use of rhema in the sense of a long expression approves this. In Plato’s work (399ac) where Socrates claims that the name anthropos derives from anthron ha opopen (‘he who examines what he has seen’) we have an onoma from, or in place of, a rhema. 1) Subject The subject (ὑποκειμένον) is that of which another term is said or predicated. Aristotle’s own definition is of a much more philosophical value: ‘By subject I mean that which is expressed by an affirmative term (λέγω δὲ ὑποκείμενον τὸ κάταφάσει δηλούμενον).’ (Met., K, 1067b18) Throughout Aristotle’s work, three kinds of subjects can be found: possible, prime and absolute subject. a) Possible subject Those things that can take the position of a subject in a predication we call possible subjects, no matter they can or cannot take the position of predicate in any predication. All terms except the ultimate predicates are possible subjects because they can take the position of subject. b) Prime subject Those that in any predication can only take the position of a subject and not the position of a predicate are prime subjects. (Cat., 5, 3a36-b2; Met., Z, 1028b36-1029a1) This is the truest sense of subject and belongs only to substances. (Met., Z, 1029a1-2) In fact, ‘that which is not predicated of a subject, but of which all else is predicated’ is a substance. (Met., Z, 1029a7-9) In Categories, besides primary substances (Cat., 2, 1b3-6), individual qualities are also said not to be able to be said of anything else. (Cat., 2, 1a23-29) Aristotle’s examples are a certain ‘knowledge-of-grammar’ (τὶς γράμματικὴ) and ‘an individual white’ (τὸ τὶ λευκὸν). Thus, although substances are indeed in the truest sense individuals and, thereby, in the truest sense primary subjects, other individuals can take the position of subject as well. c) Absolute subject While substances are prime subjects of all other things, there is still something of which substances can be predicated and this predication is not an accidental predication: matter. (Met., Z, 1029a21-24) This predication is, indeed, the predication of a ‘form or this’ on matter and material substance. (Met., Θ, 1049a34-36) The only thing that is absolutely a subject, therefore, and can be a predicate is prime matter (πρώτη ὓλη). (Met., Θ, 1049a24-27) d) Subject and substance The most important thing in being a substance is being a subject: ‘It is because the primary substances are subjects for all the other things and all the other things are predicated of them or are in them, that they are called substances most of all.’ (Cat., 5, 2b15-17) And what is nearer to this position is more a substance as a species is more a substance than a genus.’ (Cat., 5, 2b7-8) e) Primary versus accidental subject A subject is a primary subject in a predication when the predicate is predicated of it as itself. In such a case, the subject is the subject of the predicate qua itself and not qua something else. A subject, on the one hand, is an accidental subject when it is not the primary subject of the predicate that is predicated on it. It means that a subject is an accidental subject when the predicate is predicated of it not qua itself but qua something else. An accidental subject is, therefore, anything other than a substance. 2) Predicate as universal It is evident from our discussion of kinds of subjects that except matter, primary substances (if we ignore both accidental predication and cases of absolute subjects) and other individuals, everything else can take the position of a predicate. Since primary substances are individuals, it results that everything except matter and individuals are capable to take the position of predicate. The immediate consequence of this is that the predicate must be a universal. When individuals cannot take the position of predicate, this position cannot be taken by any particular. Therefore, only universals can be predicated of others. Moreover, albeit universals can be a simple subject (for another universal), they are not prime subjects. The closeness of universal and predicate is to the extent that Aristotle differentiates universal from subject. (Met., Θ, 1049a27-30) 3) Categories or classes of predicates Aristotle distinguishes ten highest classes into one of which each predicate must necessarily fall: substance (or what a thing is), quality, quantity, relation, place, time, position, state, activity and passivity. (Cat., 4, 1b25-27; To., I, 9, 103b20- ; PsA., A, 22, 83b13-23) The substance counted among predicates must refer to secondary and not primary substances not only because Aristotle insists that primary substances cannot be predicated but also from his own examples of the category of substance: man and animal. (To., I, 9, 103b25) However, if a predicate be asserted of itself or its genus be asserted of it, the predicate signifies substance or what is; but if ‘one kind of predicate is asserted of another kind,’ it signifies one of the other nines. (To., I, 9, 103b30) These categories are so comprehensive that no predicate can remain outside them so that even non-being has as many senses as categories. (Met., M, 1089a26-30) a) That whether Aristotle’s categories are merely linguistic or fundamentally ontological is a so much controversial dispute. Some like G. E. R. Lloyd believe that ‘categories are primarily intended as a classification of reality … rather than of the signifying terms themselves.’ b) Although Aristotle’s categories have been historically regarded as a classification of predications, there are some recent commentators like Jonathan Barnes that think it is classifying predicates and not predications. 4) Kinds of predicates In his introduction of Categories, as J. W. Thorp truly points out , Aristotle distinguishes between the category of substance and the other categories using μὲν ... δὲ construction. This construction illustrates that beside tenfold classification of categories, there is an even more crucial differentiation between two kinds of predicates: substance or what is on the one hand and the other nine ones on the other hand: the distinction between what is predicated of the subject as what it is and what is predicated of it as an accident. Therefore, we have three kinds of classification - a twofold, a fourfold and a tenfold-complicatedly classifying the same thing, viz. the predicate. Predicates can be divided also to four kinds: property, definition, genus and accident. (To., I, 4, 101b11-20) A property is that predicate that is convertible with its subject and does not signify its essence. A definition is that predicate that is convertible with its subject and signifies its essence. It is a genus if it is not predicated convertibly and is contained in the definition of its subject. And it is an accident if it is neither convertible nor contained in the definition of its subject. (To., I, 8, ^103b3) All of these four kinds are among categories. (To., I, 9, 103b20) It seems that there might be some kind of relation between the twofold and the fourfold distinction: whereas genus and definition are predicated as what it is, accidents are not so predicated. There seems to be some rules that determine to each of these four kinds each predicate belongs. At To., IV, 123b30ff. Aristotle asserts: ‘If B has a contrary and A does not, then B does not belong to A as its genus.’ There is a dispute around per se accidents (τὰ καθ’ αὑτὰ συμβεβηκότα) (Topics., 102a18) whether they must be regarded as either of the four kinds or as a fifth kind. Barnes (1970) argued that they ‘do not fit at all neatly into the fourfold classification.’ He argues that based on the definition of accidents at A, 5, 102b4-5, they must be accidents but based on another definition, A, 5, 102b6-7, they cannot be accidents. He also defends the view that they are not properties. Barnes concludes: ‘This shows that the two definitions are not equivalent, and hence that the ‘predicables’ are not well-defined.’ Demetris J. Hadgopoulos defends the view that the two definitions of accidents are equivalent and per se accidents are properties. 5) Five types of predications We have five kinds of predications based on our division of subjects and our discussion of predicates: simple, primary (itself divided to substantial and accident), accidental (itself divided to primary and secondary), aoincidental and absolute predication. a) Simple predication. This is a predication in which a universal is predicated of either a particular or a universal subject. This sense of predication includes all other senses except the first kind of accidental predication. b) Primary predication. This is a predication in which a universal is predicated of a primary subject, namely a substance. A primary predication is of two kinds: i) Substantial predication. A primary predication in which the predicate is part of, or is included in, the definition of the subject. The universal that is the predicate here is the definition or the genus or the species or the diferentia of the subject. It is this predication that Aristotle calls a unity: ‘A statement may be called a unity … because it exhibits a single predicate as inhering not accidentally in a single subject.’ (PsA., B, 10, 93b35-37) It is only substantial predicates that can be predicated of each other: ‘Predicates which are not substantial are not predicated of one another.’ (PsA., A, 22, 83b18-19) Aristotle defines a substantial predication also in another way. A predication in which a higher genus is predicated on a lower genus, species, a substance or an individual, (or a species is predicated on an individual) is a substantial predication. Therefore, a substantial predication is a predication in a series that has individuals on one of its ends and a general category on its other end. In fact, only substantial predicates can be predicated of one another. (PsA., A, 22, 83b17-19) This series cannot be an infinite series because otherwise not only substances would not be definable but also a genus would be equal to one of its own species. (PsA., A, 22, 83b7-10) -/- ii) Accident predication. A primary predication in which the predicate is not part of, or is not included in, the definition of its subject. The universal that is the predicate here is the property or the accident of the subject. c) Accidental predication. This is a predication in which the subject is not a primary subject and its predicate is a substance. This predication is of two kinds: i) Primary accidental predication. This is a predication in which an accident is predicated of substance. Such a predication can go ad infinitum, which is inferable from Aristotle’s assertion that the secondary accidental predication cannot go ad infinitum. ii) Secondary accidental predication. It is a predication in which an accident is predicated of another accident. Such a predication, Aristotle asserts, cannot go ad infinitum because even more than two accidents cannot be combined. Now what is the meaning of Aristotle’s assertion that we cannot continue this ad infinitum? Does it mean that we cannot continue the predication ‘The musician is white’ and say ‘The white is Athenian?’ But why not? Or maybe he means that by adding any predication, we are still in a condition of predicating two accidents of a substance on each other. -/- As primary subjects, substances can also take the position of predicate though not essentially but accidentally. In propositions like ‘the white is a log’ or ‘That big thing is a log’ we observe substance taking the position of predicate but this is only accidentally: ‘When I affirm ‘the white is a log,’ I mean that something which happens to be white is a log- not that white is the subject in which log inheres (οὐχ ὡς τὸ ὑποκείμενον τῷ ξύλῳ τὸ λευκόν ἐστι), for it was not qua white or qua a species of white that the white (thing) came to be a log (οὔτε λευκὸν ὄν οὔθ᾿ ὃπερ λευκόν τι ἐγἐνετο ξύλον), and the white (thing) is consequently not a log except incidentally.’ (PsA., 22, 83a3-9) Aristotle compares this accidental use of substance in the position of predicate with the substantial use of it in the place of a subject: ‘On the other hand, when I affirm ‘the log is white,’ I do not mean that something else, which happens to be a log, is white (οὐχ ὃτι ἓτερόν τί ἐστι λευκόν, ἐκείνῳ δὲ συμβέβηκε ξύλῳ εἶναι), (as I should if I said ‘the musician is white,’ which would mean ‘The man who happens also to be a musician is white’); on the contrary, log is here the subject- the subject which actually came to be white, and did so qua wood or qua a species of wood and qua nothing else.’ (PsA., 22, 83a8-14) Aristotle asks us not to call propositions like ‘The white is a log’ a predication at all or at least call them accidental predication instead of simple (ἁπλως) predication. (PsA., A, 22, 83a14-17) An accidental predication, in which we have a substance in the place of predicate, is different from an essential predication in that while the subject of an accidental predication is said to be the predicate not by itself but as something different with which it coincides, the subject of an essential predicate is said to be the predicate by itself and not because it is something else: ‘Since there are attributes which are predicated of a subject essentially and not accidentally- not, that is, in the sense in which we say ‘That white (thing) is a man,’ which is not the same mode of predication as when we say ‘The man is white’: the man is white not because he is something else but because he is man, but the white is man because ‘being white’ coincides with ‘humanity’ within one subject. Therefore, there are terms such as are essentially subjects of predicates. (PsA., A, 19, 81a24-29) This capability of ‘non-essentially and only accidentally’ being a subject does belong, in fact, to all sensible things. (PsA., A, 27a32-36) d) Coincidental predication. this is a predication in which none of the subject and predicate are a substance or an individual. In this predication, one of the accidents of a substance or individual is predicated of one of the other accidentals of the same substance or individual. For example, when it is said that ‘The white is musical,’ there is an individual, say Socrates, for which both of white and musical are accidents. e) Absolute predication. This is a predication in which a form or a substance is predicated of a matter or a material substance. Some commentators like Loux and Lewis regarded this predication as close to accident predication, both based on inherence. As R.M. Dancy points out, these predications make Aristotle’s theory of predication immanentist: not only accident predications are explained by the immanence of accidents in substances, some of the substantial predications, which were not explained in Categories, are also explained by the immanence of form in matter. It is interesting that in this kind of predication, it is the predicate and not the subject, which is in the strictest sense substance. As the central books of Metaphysics claim, the form is the substance. Thus, in this predication, substance gets away from the sense of ὑποκείμενον. Corkum mentiones 68a19 as the only instance where Aristotle explicitly claims that a term may be predicated of itself, a passage that is, in Corkum’s view, problematic. 6) Demonstrable predicates Those predicates are demonstrable that are so related to their subjects that there are other predicates prior to them predicable of their subjects (ἔτι δ᾿ ἄλλος, εἰ ὧν πρότερα ἄττα κατηγορεῖται). (PsA., A, 22, 83b32-34) 7) Series of predications Since it is possible for a predicate to be itself the subject of another predication, we can have a series of predications in which the predicate of a predication is the subject of the next predication. This series has the following features: a) It has a limit (in number) (PsA., A, 22, 83b14-16) on the side of subjects: there are subjects that cannot themselves be predicated (PsA., A, 27, 43a39-41), which are, as we noted, prime subjects: particulars, i.e. prime substances and other individuals. (PsA., A, 19-22) Aristotle calls them ultimate (ὓστατον). (PsA., 21, 82a36-b1) b) It has a limit (in number of kinds) (PsA., A, 22, 83b14-16) also on the side of predicates: there must be predicates that cannot be subjects. (PsA., A, 19-22; PsA., A, 27, 43a36-39) Aristotle calls them primary (πρῶτον). (PsA., A, 21, 82b1-4) These are the highest categories or the highest genera of categories. (PsA., A, 22, 83b14-16) c) The series has an escalating shape from mere subjects at its downside to mere predicates at its upside. It is Aristotle himself whos uses the words up and down in this sense. (e.g. PsA., A, 22, 83b2-3) d) The predications that lie between lowest and highest ones must be finite in number. (PsA., A, 19-22 especially: 20, 82a21-35) These have subjects and predicates, each capable of both of the roles of being subject and being predicated. A result of this fitness is that neither demonstration can go to infinity nor everything is demonstrable, the two points Aristotle always insist on. e) The upward side includes the more universal ones and the downward the more particular ones. (PsA., 20, 82a21-23) f) It follows from the above features that ‘neither the ascending nor the descending series of predications … are infinite.’ (PsA., A, 22, 83b24-25) g) Reciprocation and convertibility. Except in case of terms (i.e. subjects and predicates) that are at each of the ends of series of predications, namely ultimates and primaries, it is possible to reciprocate (ἀντιστρέφειν) terms and convert the predication. (PsA., A, 19, 82a15-20) h) Antipredication. Antipredication means that in a predication (S is P), the subject becomes the predicate of its predicate (P is S) in the same category its predicate was predicated on it. For example, if P is in the category of quality, antipredication means that S be predicated of P in the category of quality. In other words, P is a quality of S and S is a quality of P. Aristotle rejects this. (PsA., A, 22, 83a36-b3) i) Self-predication versus other-predication. Aristotle distinguishes between a predication in which a term is said of itself and a predication in which a term is said of another. (Phy., Δ, 2, 209a31-33) j) Predicablity (Cat., 5, 3a36-b2): 1) Primary substances and individuals are not predicable. 2) Secondary substances are of two kinds: genus and species i) Genus is predicable able both of the species and of the individuals. ii) Species is predicable of the individual. 3) Differentiae are predicable both of the species and of the individuals. 8) Predication as classification a) Richard Patterson believes that Aristotle’s so repeated construction using hoper (estin A hoper B) in Topics (120a23 sq., 122b19, 26sq., 123a, 124a18, 125a29, 126a21, 128a35. Also in Posterior Analytics (83a24-30) (Brunschwig’s list. ‘expresses the fact that A is a kind of B (esti A B tis), that A is a species of the genus B.’ 9) Universal predication Aristotle defines universal predication (κατὰ παντὸς κατηγορεῖσθαι) as such: ‘wherever no instance of the subject (τῶν τοῦ ὑποκειμέμνου) can be found of which the other term cannot be asserted.’ (PrA., A, 24b27-29) In this predication, the subject is included in another as in a whole (ἐν ὃλῳ εἶναι) and the predicate is predicated of all of the subject (κατὰ παντὸς κατηγορεῖσθαι). (PrA., A, 24b26-27) Attach another discussion we had about ἐν ὃλῳ here. 10) Quantity of predication A predication, truly stated, has a quantity, which is the number of objects under the name of the subject of which the predicate is predicated. The quantity of subject can be stated in four ways: a. Indefinite: when the predicate belongs or does not belong to the subject without any mark to show to haw many of the particulars under the name of the subject it does or does not belong. E.g. ‘Man is white’; ‘Man is not white.’ (PrA., A, 24a20; OI., I, 7, 17b8-12) b. Universal quantity: When the predicate belongs to all or none of the subject. E.g. ‘Every man is animal’; ‘No man is animal.’ (PrA., A, 24a18-19; OI., I, 7, 17b5-6) The contrary of a predication of a universal quality is a predication of a universal quality. E.g. the contrary of ‘Every man is white’ is ‘No man is white.’ (OI., I, 7, 17b20-23) c. Particular quantity: When the predicate belongs (or does not belong) to some of the subject. E.g. ‘Some men are white’; ‘Some men are not white.’ (PrA., A, 24a19-20) d. Single quantity: when the subject is a proper name of only one object. E.g. ‘Socrates is white’; ‘Socrates is not white.’ The contrary of this predication is of a single quantity: ‘Socrates is not white.’ (OI., I, 7, 17b38-18a4) 11) Convertibility of predication. Some predications are convertible, that is, it is possible to change the place of subject and predicate in a true proposition so that the converted proposition remains true. This is supposed to mean that given the truth of a predication, the truth of the converted predication is inferable. The convert form of a predication depends on its quantity. a. Indefinite quantity: This predication has no strictly true convert because its quantity is not stated. b. Universal quantity: It can be converted in two ways: i) A negative universal can be converted to a negative universal in which the terms are changed. E.g. ‘No pleasure is good’ can be converted to ‘No good is pleasure.’ (PrA., A, 2, 25a5-8 and a14-19) ii) An affirmative universal can be converted to an affirmative particular in which the terms are changed. E.g. ‘Every pleasure is good’ can be converted to ‘Some good is pleasure.’ (PrA., A, 2, 25a7-9) c. Particular quantity: If it is negative, it cannot be converted but if it is affirmative, it can be converted to an affirmative predication with particular quantity. E.g. ‘Some pleasure is good’ can be converted to ‘Some good is pleasure.’ (PrA., A, 2, 25a10-13 and a20-24) d. Single quantity: It cannot be converted. 12) Characteristics of relations between subject and predicate 1. A predicate is of a wider range than its subject. It is based on this fact that Aristotle: a) Prevents individuals to be predicate because there is nothing of which an individual be of a wider range. In other words, it is due to the fact that since an individual is only ‘one particular’ thing and, thus, cannot be of a wider extent than anything that Aristotle prevents them of being a predicate. Matthews, however, thinks we cannot use Socrates, a substance and an individual, in the place of predicate and say it of Socrates because ‘Socrates does not classify Socrates: it names him.’ b) Prevents differentia, species and things under species to be predicated of genus. (To., Z, 6, 144a27-) c) Prevents the species and the things under it to be predicated of the differentia. (To., Z, 6, 144b1-4) d) Also about the effect because it is wider than its subject. (PsA., B, 17, 99a) e) Each attribute is wider than every individual it is predicated on, though several attributes, collectively considered, might not be wider but exactly the substance of a thing. (PsA., B, 13, 96a32-b1) 2. The predicate of a predicate of a subject will be predicated of the subject too: ‘whenever one thing is predicated of another as of a subject, all things said of what is predicated will be said of the subject too.’ (Cat., 3, 1b10-15) In fact, it is due to its predication of the subject that it is predicated of its predicate. (Cat., 5, 2a36-b1) Moreover, what is not predicated of the predicate of a subject cannot be predicated of it as well. (PrA., A, 27, 43b22-27) Thus, what, for example, is not predicated of animal, cannot be predicated of man. 3. The predicate of a subject can be predicated of its predicates as well. (Cat., 5, 3a1-6) For example, you call the individual man grammatical and, thence, you call both a man and an animal grammatical. Nonetheless, the predicate of a subject belongs to it more properly than to its higher predicates. (PrA., A, 27, 43a27-32) 4. It is only the subject that can be distributed and not the predicate. (PrA., A, 27, 43b16-22; OI, I, 7, 17b12-16) Therefore, we can say e.g. ‘Every man is animal’ but we cannot say ‘Every man is every animal.’ 5. It is the reason of the relation between subjects and predicates, that is the reason of predication, which is the subject of inquiry. (Met., Z, 1041a20-24) In other words, since it is a meaningless inquiry to ask why a thing is itself (Met., Z, 1041a14-15), the only remaining meaningful inquiry is to ask why something is something else, i.e. to ask about the reason of predication. 6. A subject cannot categorize its predicate in the same category in which it is categorized by it. If e.g. A is a quality of B, B cannot be a quality of A. Therefore, there is no reciprocation in the same category. (PsA., A, 22, 83a36-39) 13) Characteristics of series of predications 1. A series of secondary accidental predication cannot go ad infinitum for not even more than two terms can be comnbined. For an accident is not an accident of an accident, unless it be because both are accidents of the same subject. (Met., Γ, 1007b1-4) 2. Infinite series cannot be traversed in thought. (PsA., A, 22, 83b6-7) 3. The predications of genera on each other must be ended and cannot go to infinity because otherwise not only substances would not be definable but also a genus would be equal to one of its own species. (PsA., A, 22, 83b7-10) Therefore, a series of predication of genera on each other must be limited on both sides. There must be an upward limit in general categories as well as a downward limit in individual because they cannot be predicated of others. Whatever lies between these limits can both be predicated of others and others be predicated of them. (PrA., A, 27, 43a36-43) 4. The order of predicates matters: it makes a difference whether the series be ABC or BAC. (PsA., B, 13, 96b25-32) . (shrink)

Descartes' philosophy contains an intriguing notion of the infinite, a concept labeled by the philosopher as indefinite. Even though Descartes clearly defined this term on several occasions in the correspondence with his contemporaries, as well as in his Principles of Philosophy, numerous problems about its meaning have arisen over the years. Most commentators reject the view that the indefinite could mean a real thing and, instead, identify it with an Aristotelian potential infinite. In the first part of this (...) article, I show why there is no numerical infinity in Cartesian mathematics, as such a concept would be inconsistent with the main fundamental attribute of numbers: to be comparable with each other. In the second part, I analyze the indefinite in the context of Descartes' mathematical physics. It is my contention that, even with no trace of infinite in his mathematics, Descartes does refer to an actual indefinite because of its application to the material world within the system of his physics. This fact underlines a discrepancy between his mathematics and physics of the infinite, but does not lead a difficulty in his mathematical physics. Thus, in Descartes' physics, the indefinite refers to an actual dimension of the world rather than to an Aristotelian mathematical potential infinity. In fact, Descartes establishes the reality and limitlessness of the extension of the cosmos and, by extension, the actual nature of his indefinite world. This indefinite has a physical dimension, even if it is not measurable. La filosofía de Descartes contiene una noción intrigante de lo infinito, un concepto nombrado por el filósofo como indefinido. Aunque en varias ocasiones Descartes definió claramente este término en su correspondencia con sus contemporáneos y en sus Principios de filosofía, han surgido muchos problemas acerca de su significado a lo largo de los años. La mayoría de comentaristas rechaza la idea de que indefinido podría significar una cosa real y, en cambio, la identifica con un infinito potencial aristotélico. En la primera parte de este artículo muestro por qué no hay infinito numérico en las matemáticas cartesianas, en la medida en que tal concepto sería inconsistente con el principal atributo fundamental de los números: ser comparables entre sí. En la segunda parte analizo lo indefinido en el contexto de la física matemática de Descartes. Mi argumento es que, aunque no hay rastro de infinito en sus matemáticas, Descartes se refiere a un indefinido real a causa de sus aplicaciones al mundo material dentro del sistema de su física. Este hecho subraya una discrepancia entre sus matemáticas y su física de lo infinito, pero no implica ninguna dificultad en su física matemática. Así pues, en la física de Descartes, lo indefinido se refiere a una dimensión real del mundo más que a una infinitud potencial matemática aristotélica. De hecho, Descartes establece la realidad e infinitud de la extensión del cosmos y, por extensión, la naturaleza real de su mundo indefinido. Esta indefinición tiene una dimensión física aunque no sea medible. (shrink)

The article focuses on an unexamined so far aspect of byzantine philosophy, namely the influence of Arabic philosophy upon byzantine thinkers. Despite the vicinity of Byzantium and Arabic territories, the philosophical interactions were minimal. Scholarios claimed, in a dedicatory epistle to Constantine Paleologus (1405-1453), that he had studied the treatises of Avicenna, Averroes, and other Arab and Persian philosophers. He admitted that Averroes was beyond doubt the best commentator of Aristotle. Scholarios acknowledged that the study of the Arabs contributed immensely (...) to his philosophical education and particularly to the proper understanding of the Aristotelian philosophy (Scholarios, vii.1-6). Scholarios aimed at the enrichment and renewal of Byzantine philosophy. Besides his high esteem for Arabic philosophy, he devoted a large part of his life translating and paraphrasing the Scholastics, especially Aquinas. Despite Scolarios’ claim about his erudition on the Arab and Persian philosophers, a detailed examination of his works proves that in most cases he simply reproduced and incorporated sections from Aquinas’ works, without resorting to the original sources. Scholarios’ references to the Arabs are multiplied in his translations and compendia of Aquinas’ works, but are reduced significantly in his original texts. Frequently Scholarios refrained from mentioning the Arab philosophers, despite the fact that he commented on Aquinas’ passages, which are dedicated to Avicenna or Averroes. On the contrary, Scholarios did not avoid mentioning in detail Aquinas’ Christian or ancient Greek sources. It is obvious that Scholarios did not have a consistent approach towards Arabic philosophy. Most of the times he reproduced loosely Aquinas’ passages, where the latter commented on the Arabs. (shrink)

Do minds and ideas connect, interact, or even depend on each other, and if so, how exactly do they connect and interact? How should we conceive of the mode and process of minds and ideas being in a network and connected in some way, that is, being intersubjective or social? Martin Lenz's study Socializing Minds convincingly shows that, contrary to widespread opinion in philosophy of mind, at least some early modern philosophers, here Spinoza, Locke, and Hume, actually give a positive (...) answer to the first question and present models that respond to the second question, thus addressing what Lenz proposes calling 'the contact problem' and repudiating the idea that mentalism is necessarily bound to individualism. In this comment, I focus on a detail in Lenz's reconstruction of Spinoza's 'metaphysical model' of the intersubjectivity of minds, namely the Aristotelian physical dynamism that would underlie Spinoza's idea of the interaction of minds. While I agree that Spinoza's model of interaction of minds refers to the Aristotelian conception of motion, I argue that the guiding principle in natural motion is best understood not only in terms of contrariety but also in terms of complementarity. Admittedly, my proposal goes beyond Spinoza's model of ideas in contact, and probably beyond Lenz's interpretation of that model, but it might enrich the imagination of the socialising of minds and ideas from a kinetic point of view, which, at least as I understand it, is precisely what Spinoza and Lenz thrive on. (shrink)

One of the most famous and most important commentaries of the Neoplatonist Simplicius treats the Physics of Aristotle. Several times, having commented the text within the Aristotelian frame, Simplicius treats the same subject again but now under a Neoplatonist perspective. These texts are called corollaries and one of them is about time. Discussing other Neoplatonist views about time (esp. Pseudo-Archytas, Plotinus, Damascius, Jamblichus), he tries to clarify the nature of our physical time arising from and differentiating (diakrisis) a ”first“ (...) unmoving time. What Simplicius calls ”first time“ is the very first difference in being, identical with the fact that the soul (psyche) contains the structure of the totality of things in itself before they exist materially (vorweg-bei-anderem-Sein der Seele), which makes possible the original synthesis of becoming. Following this line, our physical time brings unity to the ever changing nature. (shrink)

In ancient philosophy, there is no discipline called “logic” in the contemporary sense of “the study of formally valid arguments.” Rather, once a subfield of philosophy comes to be called “logic,” namely in Hellenistic philosophy, the field includes (among other things) epistemology, normative epistemology, philosophy of language, the theory of truth, and what we call logic today. This entry aims to examine ancient theorizing that makes contact with the contemporary conception. Thus, we will here emphasize the theories of the “syllogism” (...) in the Aristotelian and Stoic traditions. However, because the context in which these theories were developed and discussed were deeply epistemological in nature, we will also include references to the areas of epistemological theorizing that bear directly on theories of the syllogism, particularly concerning “demonstration.” Similarly, we will include literature that discusses the principles governing logic and the components that make up arguments, which are topics that might now fall under the headings of philosophy of logic or non-classical logic. This includes discussions of problems and paradoxes that connect to contemporary logic and which historically spurred developments of logical method. For example, there is great interest among ancient philosophers in the question of whether all statements have truth-values. Relevant themes here include future contingents, paradoxes of vagueness, and semantic paradoxes like the liar. We also include discussion of the paradoxes of the infinite for similar reasons, since solutions have introduced sophisticated tools of logical analysis and there are a range of related, modern philosophical concerns about the application of some logical principles in infinite domains. Our criterion excludes, however, many of the themes that Hellenistic philosophers consider part of logic, in particular, it excludes epistemology and metaphysical questions about truth. Ancient philosophers do not write treatises “On Logic,” where the topic would be what today counts as logic. Instead, arguments and theories that count as “logic” by our criterion are found in a wide range of texts. For the most part, our entry follows chronology, tracing ancient logic from its beginnings to Late Antiquity. However, some themes are discussed in several eras of ancient logic; ancient logicians engage closely with each other’s views. Accordingly, relevant publications address several authors and periods in conjunction. These contributions are listed in three thematic sections at the end of our entry. (shrink)

L. Gazziero, « “Οἰκείως τῇ λογικῇ πραγματείᾳ” (Simplicii in Aristotelis categorias commentarium, 12.11). Contraintes disciplinaires – anciennes et modernes – de l’interprétation logique des Catégories d’Aristote », dans V. Brière et J. Lemaire (éd.), Qu’est-ce qu’une catégorie ? Interprétations d’Aristote, Leuven, Peeters, 2019, p. 9-59 [ISBN 9789042936621] -/- In addition to understanding the very notion of « category » according to its different Aristotelian contexts, the first order of business of an archaeology of Aristotle’s categories is to inquire into (...) its influential evolution at the hands of Late Ancient commentators. The essay retraces the origin and development of the « logical » interpretation which held sway both in ancient and modern times. It shows first that the key to understand the debate between Benveniste and Derrida over Aristotle’s categories is to be found in the Neoplatonic exegesis of the work of the same name. It shows next the powerful dynamic that led the commentators to dismiss more than a few hints in the text itself in order to build a remarkably consistent interpretation that understood the notion of category as the simplest and most fundamental element in a building block theory of linguistic expression and argumentation. -/- Face au foisonnement qui caractérise l’instruction contemporaine du dossier des « catégories » d’Aristote, il est encore et toujours utile de suivre le fil historique inauguré par Adolf Trendelenburg, réinventé par Emile Benveniste et élevé par Jacques Derrida au rang d’impératif méthodologique. Le geste inaugural d’une archéologie de la notion de « catégorie » consiste donc à se prémunir contre le risque d’évacuer le problème historique des catégories à la faveur d’une catégorialité anachronique ou passe-partout : ce qui n’est possible qu’à condition de replacer les « catégories » dans les différents contextes aristotéliciens où elles sont utilisées et d’interroger les contraintes disciplinaires qui ont structuré le débat autour de leur nature chez les commentateurs de l’Antiquité tardive. (shrink)

In De partibus animalium A1, Aristotle presents —in a darker than usual way— decisive details of the methodology he devised for his science of nature. His indications seem to point the path along which Aristotelian biology should travel. However, numerous textual and systematic difficulties have given rise to a number of conflicting interpretations, in the context of a vigorous stream of philosophical research and debate since the last third of the last century. In this stream of studies, Michael of (...) Ephesus’s commentary on PA and his views on the subject remain relatively ignored. A complex multiplicity of factors seems to support the lack of sufficient consensus among leading contemporary specialists to explicitly consider those contributions. The purpose of this paper is to examine several of these factors and, based on the evidence provided by little explored aspects of Michael’s texts, to offer arguments in favor of that consensus against a number of alternatives. I shall argue that the contributions of this late commentator deserve to be considered —mutatis mutandis— as seriously as it is done with the main ancient Greek commentaries; in particular, in the philosophical studies of those who are currently interested in that methodology or are engaged in Aristotelian biology. (shrink)

The statement everyone wants to live a fulfilled and happy life may seem simple, self-evident, and even trivial at first glance. However, upon closer philosophical analysis, can we unequivocally assert that people are truly focused on well-being? Assuming they are, the question becomes: what guidelines should be followed and how should one behave in order to achieve true well-being and attain their goals? One popular viewpoint is that cultivating moral virtues and personal qualities is essential for a life of "true" (...) well-being, rather than mere pleasure. This perspective is not particularly original, as it was advocated quite clearly by Aristotle. However, we must ask: what guarantees that virtue will lead to well-being? Can we really ignore the common-sense doubt that virtue (and moral life), as Kant points out, may not be rewarded with any form of well-being or "happiness" in the broadest sense during our earthly existence? How might we address this doubt? If questions about the relationship between happiness and virtue have been asked since ancient times, why don't we have definitive answers yet? Perhaps there is something wrong with the questions themselves, as is often the case in philosophy. Views on this relationship have influenced the modification of theories that philosophers have put forth in order to provide satisfactory answers. One such theory is the renewed and modernized ethics of virtue, which places the greatest emphasis on building an individual's moral character, assuming that Aristotelian character virtues such as courage, honesty, generosity, prudence, self-control, and compassion will enable us to lead a happy and fulfilling life. "Virtues" refer to a wide range of "excellences" or activities that individuals can use to perfect themselves. For example, an ordinary person might accept that courage can make their life more fulfilling, but it's important to recognize that virtues cannot be acquired overnight. Furthermore, many people believe that virtues are innate qualities that one either possesses or lacks. In contrast, ethics of virtue provides guidance and instructions for developing virtues over extended periods of time, as well as for continuously "practicing" the development of moral characteristics that will make us better individuals. The central and most significant concept in ethics of virtue is the golden mean, which can be interpreted in various ways. Essentially, ethics of virtue offers a path to a life filled with pleasure, harmony, and virtuous action. However, this collection of essays, Virtues and Vices: Between Ethics and Epistemology, is not exclusively concerned with virtues or ethics. Knowledge, as well as the processes of belief formation and justification of those beliefs, are also essential to ethics of virtue. Going back to the systematic Greek philosopher and his teacher, we can emphasize that virtues and knowledge are inseparable. Without the epistemology of virtues, even a thematic collection like this one would be incomplete. The Epistemology of Virtue is a relatively new branch of philosophy that has emerged as a response to questions about the value-neutrality of science. For a long time, the separation of values and scientific inquiry has been viewed as the correct methodological approach. However, it is clear that every scientist is also a human being with their own virtues and flaws. It is naive to assume that a scientist can leave their values and moral qualities outside the laboratory and treat their colleagues in the team differently than they would treat other people in their everyday life. Taking this into account, we can notice that Epistemology of Virtue is a theory that examines the influence of virtues on the processes of acquiring knowledge. Epistemic virtues refer to qualities that enable individuals to acquire knowledge and make reliable judgments. These virtues include traits such as openness to diverse testimonies and arguments, critical thinking, a tendency to question one's own assumptions, and the ability to identify errors in one's own thought processes. Just like in virtue ethics, the Epistemology of Virtue raises the question of how we can cultivate the necessary virtues and how these virtues can have a positive impact on both individuals and society. The field also explores how epistemic virtues can be put into practice, such as in educational settings, scientific research, and various social activities. Finally, we turn to a topic that is often overlooked in philosophy - human flaws. While ethics typically views flaws as the opposite of virtues, requiring correction both individually and socially, the Epistemology of Virtue questions what happens when flaws occur in knowledge-related qualities. Do these flaws also need to be eliminated, or are they an inherent part of the process of acquiring knowledge and making judgments? At first glance, prejudices, stereotypes, dogmatism, conformism, closed-mindedness towards arguments and evidence, as well as uncritical acceptance of authority, can all hinder our ability to acquire knowledge. Epistemologists view these qualities as vices, rather than flaws like ethicists do. The Epistemology of Vices is the newest of the three branches of philosophy covered in this thematic collection, and it examines the ways in which false and untrue beliefs develop and persist in society. This area of study seeks to answer questions about how people form delusions and whether it is possible to overcome them. On the other hand, the Epistemology of Virtue is like the "older brother" that supervises these vices. It contributes to the investigation and overcoming of vices by developing virtues that enable individuals to more accurately assess the truthfulness of their beliefs. However, even though vices can have a destructive impact on knowledge acquisition, the question remains: are vices always detrimental in every context? Conversely, can virtues be detrimental? For example, does a virtue like solidarity sometimes hinder the efficient formation of true beliefs in time-sensitive situations such as finding a vaccine to combat a virus pandemic? Can vices be useful? Can stubbornness and uncooperativeness sometimes help a research team by allowing two sides to reach the same goal through different paths? Within this collection, some of these questions will receive answers, some of which may confirm existing impressions, while others may surprise readers. The thematic collection, Virtues and Vices: Between Ethics and Epistemology, consists of four interesting chapters and 21 papers that cover the selected topic through the prism of philosophical disciplines such as ethics, epistemology, the history of philosophy, philosophy of mind, political philosophy, and philosophy of science. In this introduction, we will not discuss the contents of the articles so as not to disrupt the intended integral approach to reading the collection. A significant feature of this collection is the continuity that extends from one paper to another, from topic to topic, and from problem to problem. Lastly, we would like to express our gratitude to the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Belgrade for their support in realizing this collection, as well as to our colleagues from the Department and Institute of Philosophy who have made this collection a relevant and significant achievement with their contributions. We are also thankful to the reviewers of the collection as a whole, as well as to the referees of individual articles, who have provided us with detailed comments and remarks that have made this collection clearer and more comprehensive. We owe a special thanks to our colleagues from Zagreb, Rijeka, and Maribor, whose exceptional papers have contributed to making this collection an unabashed international contribution to debates about the ethics and epistemology of virtues and vices. (shrink)

In his 1928-29 Sather Classical lectures, Paul Shorey noted that ‘there are few sentences and almost no pages of Aristotle that can be fully understood without reference to the specific passages of Plato of which he was thinking as he wrote. And as…few modern Aristotelians have the patience to know Plato intimately, Aristotelians as a class only half understand their author’ (Platonism Ancient and Modern, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1938, 6). In the 75 years since Shorey’s lament, scholarship has (...) become even more specialized, and rare is the scholar who has published regularly on both Aristotle and Plato. Thus, Plato and Aristotle’s Ethics, a collection of six papers (each with accompanying commentary) presented at a S.V. Keeling Colloquium on Ancient Philosophy in November 2001, is a welcome and worthy contribution by major scholars of ancient philosophy. The volume’s contributors examine topics in Aristotle’s ethical treatises which derive from his agreements and disagreements with Plato. The volume includes an index locorum and an introduction by R. Heinaman, but no general bibliography. Although understanding the Platonic origins of Aristotle’s discussions is helpful to any student of the Ethics, the analyses are at times extraordinarily rich and closely argued, and indeed space forces me to underscore only the main arguments and largely omit discussion of the commentators’ remarks. (shrink)

An Aristotelian Philosophy of Mathematics breaks the impasse between Platonist and nominalist views of mathematics. Neither a study of abstract objects nor a mere language or logic, mathematics is a science of real aspects of the world as much as biology is. For the first time, a philosophy of mathematics puts applied mathematics at the centre. Quantitative aspects of the world such as ratios of heights, and structural ones such as symmetry and continuity, are parts of the physical world (...) and are objects of mathematics. Though some mathematical structures such as infinities may be too big to be realized in fact, all of them are capable of being realized. Informed by the author's background in both philosophy and mathematics, but keeping to simple examples, the book shows how infant perception of patterns is extended by visualization and proof to the vast edifice of modern pure and applied mathematical knowledge. (shrink)

In this paper I examine what exactly is ‘Aristotelian metaphysics’. My inquiry into Aristotelian metaphysics should not be understood to be so much concerned with the details of Aristotle's metaphysics. I am are rather concerned with his methodology of metaphysics, although a lot of the details of his metaphysics survive in contemporary discussion as well. This warrants an investigation into the methodological aspects of Aristotle's metaphysics. The key works that we will be looking at are his Physics, Metaphysics, (...) Categories and De Interpretatione. Perhaps the most crucial features of the Aristotelian method of philosophising are the relationship between science and metaphysics, and his defence of the principle of non-contradiction (PNC). For Aristotle, natural science is the second philosophy, but this is so only because there is something more fundamental in the world, something that natural science – a science of movement – cannot study. Furthermore, Aristotle demonstrates that metaphysics enters the picture at a fundamental level, as he argues that PNC is a metaphysical rather than a logical principle. The upshot of all this is that the Aristotelian method and his metaphysics are not threatened by modern science, quite the opposite. Moreover, we have in our hands a methodology which is very rigorous indeed and worthwhile for any metaphysician to have a closer look at. (shrink)

The advent of contemporary evolutionary theory ushered in the eventual decline of Aristotelian Essentialism (Æ) – for it is widely assumed that essence does not, and cannot have any proper place in the age of evolution. This paper argues that this assumption is a mistake: if Æ can be suitably evolved, it need not face extinction. In it, I claim that if that theory’s fundamental ontology consists of dispositional properties, and if its characteristic metaphysical machinery is interpreted within the (...) framework of contemporary evolutionary developmental biology, an evolved essentialism is available. The reformulated theory of Æ offered in this paper not only fails to fall prey to the typical collection of criticisms, but is also independently both theoretically and empirically plausible. The paper contends that, properly understood, essence belongs in the age of evolution. (shrink)

Abstract: This chapter examines the role of the virtuous agent in the acquisition of virtue. It rejects the view of the virtuous agent as a direct model for imitation and instead focuses on recent research on the importance of phronesis. Phronesis is understood as a type of moral ‘know how’ expertise that is supported by a variety of abilities, from emotional maturity, to self-reflection, to an empathic understanding of what moves others, to an ability to see beyond the surface and (...) understand the complexities of human behaviour. If we want to acquire virtue instead of focusing on the virtuous agent as such we should be trying to understand the abilities exemplified by his phronesis. As part of this project, I also consider philosophers who seek inspiration from the empirical sciences to shed light on how phronetic expertise is developed and what relevance this may have for moral education. (shrink)

Neo-Aristotelian naturalism purports to explain morality in terms of human nature, while maintaining that the relevant aspects of human nature cannot be known scientifically. This has led some to conclude that neo-Aristotelian naturalism is not a form of ethical naturalism in the standard, metaphysical sense. In this paper, I argue that neo-Aristotelian naturalism is in fact a standard form of ethical naturalism that is committed to metaphysical naturalism about moral truths and presents a distinctive and underappreciated argument (...) for it. I reconstruct the neo-Aristotelian argument for ethical naturalism in terms of a continuity between the ethical domain and the natural domain of life. I argue that clarifying the meta-ethical import of neo-Aristotelian naturalism not only helps to situate it among other positions in meta-ethics, but also facilitates better critical engagement with the view. (shrink)

Bowin begins with an apparent paradox about Aristotelian infinity: Aristotle clearly says that infinity exists only potentially and not actually. However, Aristotle appears to say two different things about the nature of that potential existence. On the one hand, he seems to say that the potentiality is like that of a process that might occur but isn't right now. Aristotle uses the Olympics as an example: they might be occurring, but they aren't just now. On the other hand, Aristotle (...) says that infinity "exists in actuality as a process that is now occurring" (234). Bowin makes clear that Aristotle doesn't explicitly solve this problem, so we are left to work out the best reading we can. His proposed solution is that "infinity must be...a per se accident...of number and magnitude" (250). (Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2008.07.47). (shrink)

Plenitude, roughly, the thesis that for any non-empty region of spacetime there is a material object that is exactly located at that region, is often thought to be part and parcel of the standard Lewisian package in the metaphysics of persistence. While the wedding of plentitude and Lewisian four-dimensionalism is a natural one indeed, there are a hand-full of dissenters who argue against the notion that Lewisian four-dimensionalism has exclusive rights to plentitude. These ‘promiscuous’ three-dimensionalists argue that a temporalized version (...) of plenitude is entirely compatible with a three-dimensional ontology of enduring entities. While few would deny the coherence of such a position, and much work has been done by its proponents to appease critics, there has been surprisingly little by way of exploring the various forms such an ontology might take as well as the potential advantages of one plenitudinous three-dimensional ontology over another. Here I develop a novel form of plenitudinous three-dimensionalism, what John Hawthorne (Metaphysical essays, 2006a, b) has called “Neo-Aristotelian Plenitude,” and argue that if one is inclined to endorse an abundant three-dimensional ontology, one is wise to opt for a plenitude of accidental unities. (shrink)

Neo-Aristotelian metaethical naturalism is a modern attempt at naturalizing ethics using ideas from Aristotle’s teleological metaphysics. Proponents of this view argue that moral virtue in human beings is an instance of natural goodness, a kind of goodness supposedly also found in the realm of non-human living things. Many critics question whether neo-Aristotelian naturalism is tenable in light of modern evolutionary biology. Two influential lines of objection have appealed to an evolutionary understanding of human nature and natural teleology to (...) argue against this view. In this paper, I offer a reconstruction of these two seemingly different lines of objection as raising instances of the same dilemma, giving neo-Aristotelians a choice between contradicting our considered moral judgment and abandoning metaethical naturalism. I argue that resolving the dilemma requires showing a particular kind of continuity between the norms of moral virtue and norms that are necessary for understanding non-human living things. I also argue that in order to show such a continuity, neo-Aristotelians need to revise the relationship they adopt with empirical science and acknowledge that the latter is relevant to assessing their central commitments regarding living things. Finally, I argue that to move this debate forward, both neo-Aristotelians and their critics should pay attention to recent work on the concept of organism in evolutionary and developmental biology. (shrink)

Must we choose between reducing material substances to collections of properties, a’ la Berkeley and Hume or positing bare particulars, in the manner of Locke? Having repudiated the notion that a substance could simply be a collection of properties existing on their own, is there a viable alternative to the Lockean notion of a substratum, a being essentially devoid of character? E.J. Lowe and Michael Loux would answer here in the affirmative. Both recommend hylomorphism as an upgrade on the metaphysics (...) of the British empiricists: treating a material substance as its essential 'form,' this embodied 'substance' universal being, in turn, the substratum in which its 'accidents' inhere. Here, I evaluate this Aristotelian metaphysics, identifying the advantages it enjoys over the empiricist's alternatives pertaining to dependence, unity, identity, change, and the distinction between essential and accidental properties. I also develop solutions to the two problems that Loux sees it posing. (shrink)

The Aristotelian view of universals, according to which each universal generically depends for its existence on its instantiations, has recently come under attack by a series of ground-theoretic arguments. The last such arguments, presented by Raven, promises to offer several significant improvements over its predecessors, such as avoiding commitment to the transitivity of ground and offering new reasons for the metaphysical priority of universals over their instantiations. In this paper, we argue that Raven's argument does not effectively avoid said (...) commitment and that Raven's new reasons fail. Moreover, we present a novel ground-theoretic interpretation of the Aristotelian view, referred to as strong immanence, and introduce a new argument against the Aristotelian view, intended to sidestep any commitment to the transitivity of ground. (shrink)

G. E. L. Owen, in his infl uential paper “Inherence,” talks of “vink,” a name he has created for a particular shade of the color pink, and this “vink” serves as an individual in the Aristotelian category of quality. Owen was one of the first to aim to discredit the belief that J. L. Ackrill and his camp espoused, the belief that Aristotle thought that “general attributes are not in individuals, particular attributes are not in more than one individual.” (...) I postulate that there is nothing here that does not preclude the existence of transferable nonsubstantial particulars, and base this view on passages from Aristotle’s Categories and certain examples found in Ammonius’s commentary and On Colors. Given this, a nonsubstantial particular of “vink” would not have to rely on having inhered in just one particular body to have existence, however, it would have to inhere in at least one particular body. (shrink)