Alexandre d’Aphrodise et la cause matérielle

1 Supplementum Aristotelicum II.ii 164-212, ed. I. Bruns, Berlin 1892; cf. also pp. 169-186 Bruns of the de anima libri mantissa, in Supplementum Aristotelicum II.i (1887). All references will be to these editions. On the interpretation of the de fato (as opposed to discussion primarily concerned with textual points) cf.: R. A. Pack, 'A Passage in Alexander of Aphrodisias relating to the theory of Tragedy', AJP 58 (1937) 418-436; E. Valgiglio, 'II Fato nel Pensiero Classico Antico', Riv. Stud. Class. 15 (1967) 305-330 and 16 (1968) 56-84 (pp. 309-319 are devoted to Alexander's de fato); G. Verbeke, 'Aristot,lisme et Stoicisme dans le de fato d'Alexandre d'Aphrodise', AGPh 50 (1968) 73-100; A. A. Long, 'Stoic Determinism and Alexander of Aphrodisias de fato (i-xiv)', AGPh 52 (1970) 247-268; P. L. Donini, Tre studi sull' aristotelismo nel II secolo d.C. (Torino, 1974) 127-185. There is one translation of the de fato into English, by A. FitzGerald (London, 1931), but this is in places rather inadequate; I hope myself to produce a translation at a later date. P. Thillet has indicated in the introduction to his edition of the medieval Latin translation attributed to William of Moerbeke (Attudes de Philosophie Medidvale 51, Paris, 1963, p. 61) that he intends to produce a new edition of the Greek text. Reference will be made in this article to passages from the mantissa and also to some from the Quaestiones attributed to Alexander (Supplementum Aristotelicum II.ii). It is very possible that not all the texts in these collections are by Alexander (cf. P. Moraux, Alexandre d'Aphrodise: Ex6gNte de la Noetique d'Aristote, (Liege-Paris 1942), 19-28; P. Merlan, 'Zwei Untersuchungen zu Alexander von Aphrodisias', Philologus 113 (1969) 85-88; R. B. Todd, 'Alexander of Aphrodisias and the Alexandrian Quaestiones 2.12', Philologus 116 (1972) 293305), but it seems generally agreed that they show his influence, and even texts which may not be by Alexander himself may serve to bring out tensions in the Peripatetic position on the issues to be discussed in this article. I am particularly grateful to Professor Todd for sending me a copy of a bibliography on Alexander that he has prepared.

The aim of this work is to present the Peripatetic doctrine of fate (heimarmene) according to Alexander of Aphrodisias in his treatise Peri heimarmenes or De fato. The central thesis of this Alexandrian work is that everything that occurs kata ten physin (in accordance with nature) occurs kath’ heimarmenen (in accordance with fate). In order to reconstruct the doctrine underlying this claim, I alternate between an exposition of the Aristotelian concepts addressed in Alexander’s writings and his own theoretical elaborations. The paper begins by outlining the terms of the debate on fate as presented by Alexander. It then reconstructs the Alexandrian account of the causality of fate, along with the Aristotelian presuppositions that support it. Finally, it examines specific aspects and limits of Alexander’s notion of fate, particularly in relation to other key concepts in his philosophy, such as what occurs katà symbebekos, human proairesis, and divine pronoia. De fato is the main reference for this paper, but other relevant works, including the Quaestiones and De Providentia, are also considered.

Alexander of Aphrodisias has defended an aristotelian conception of responsability, particularly in his treatise On Fate , which presents "Aristotle's doctrine about fate and what depends on us" ( De fato , 1), and in some texts of Mantissa or Quaestiones. This defence led him to reiterate traditional anti-determinist arguments (for example the argument by legal, moral and social consequences) as well as to propose new ones. Among his rather creative and bold arguments, we can include one that admits the existence of a movement without cause, kinesis anaitios. This point is developed in Mantissa XXII, through a passage whose authenticity is highly discussed. I will attempt to show that, even if this text cannot be attributed to Alexander with certainty, it echoes some genuine alexandrian arguments, developed in the treatise On Fate .

Fred Miller's Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle's Politics(1) is a heroic attempt to make concept of rights central to Aristotle's political philosophy. argument, although intriguing and richly rewarding, seems to me not to work. There is an inherent improbability in Miller's thesis, given what we know of in which treatise was composed (section I below). Citizenship as Aristotle conceives it is a matter not primarily of possessing certain rights, but of sharing in constitution (section II). Section III concedes that Aristotle's citizens something like what we would call rights qua citizens, but rejects Miller's attempt to find in uses of to dikaion/ta dikaia (what is just) an Aristotelian vocabulary for political rights. Section IV proposes that it is notion of desert or merit (axia) which does substantive foundational and explanatory work in Aristotle's theory of political justice which Miller would ascribe to rights. A brief conclusion (section V) sets inquiry in context of some wider issues of interpretation. I should say a preliminary word about method I am adopting in this article, mainly to point out that there is nothing whatever remarkable about it. I take myself to be approaching Politics in accordance with interpretative canons standard in mainstream historical and Aristotelian scholarship. Compare study of Aristotle's metaphysics. Everyone would grant that before we start considering whether hule or indeed any other Aristotelian concept anticipates or maps onto some modern notion of matter in any interesting or important way, it is imperative to acquire a full understanding of way idea functions within whole matrix of concepts, analyses, and theses which make up Aristotle's physics and metaphysics. I am simply pursuing same method with respect to that matrix of concepts in Aristotle's political philosophy within which Miller hopes to locate an anticipation of idea of rights. My references to work of John Pocock in section V suggested to some readers that I am espousing a form of historical or cultural or Kuhnian relativism which rules Miller's project out of court ab initio. only form of relativism to which I think this essay commits me is methodological relativism (if that is what it is) that I just described. I Athens. Historians of institutions of classical democratic no qualms in introducing topic of citizen rights into their accounts. Thus Douglas MacDowell begins Part 2 of Law in Classical with a chapter on personal status whose opening words are these: rights of anyone in Athens, including his right to prosecute at law, depended on his status, on whether he was a citizen (polites or astos) or an alien (xenos) or a slave (doulos or oiketes).(2) Similarly, Mogens Herman Hansen has a section of chapter in his Athenian Democracy on the people of Athens entitled: The Citizens, their Rights and Duties. Referring for support to Aristotle's Politics 3.1 he states: principal privilege of an Athenian citizen was his political rights; in fact they were more than just a privilege: they constituted essence of citizenship.(3) This makes citizenship in ancient sound not all that unlike citizenship in a modern western state. Things begin to look a bit different once we start listening to social and cultural historians. Consider for example following remarks of Sir Kenneth Dover in Greek Popular Morality, recently adjudged most important and original of all his books by Sir Hugh Lloyd Jones. Whereas we have become accustomed for a very long time to regard law and state as mechanisms for protection of individual freedoms, the Greek, says Dover, did not regard himself as having more rights at any given time than laws of city into which he was born gave him at that time; these rights could be reduced, for community was sovereign, and no rights were inalienable. …

<div class="page" title="Page 2"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span>This paper is aimed to analyze the hermeneutics possibilities of the concept </span><span>Automaton </span><span>applied to the explanation of some type of cyclic recurrence phenomena in the Economics of nancial and real estate market. On the other hand, the heuristic value of this concept is stood out in relation with the recurrent perspective of the story of Louis Auguste Blanqui. The main hypothesis points out that the cycles of real estate growth of the construction and subsequent nancial crisis occur in a frame of lack of purpose or of nal cause; according to the Aristotelian perspective. The updating of the Aristotelian perspective or the interpretive turn we propose is that this lack of purpose must be seen as an impossibility of transcending or overcoming the constant reiteration of those cycles. This impossibility of transcendence is due to the progressive loss, on the part of the society of consumption, of the legal notion of limit. According to the dialogue between Book II of Aristotle’s Physics and the text of Louis Auguste Blanqui Eternity through the stars we propose that what is reiterated in vain is not an excrescence parallel to the scheme of four Aristotelian causes but that all human historical time is </span><span>Automaton</span><span>. That is to say, the text of Blanqui gives us the possibility of transforming the Aristotelian concept </span><span>Automaton </span><span>into a notion of greater heuristic value that can analyze the cyclic recurrence immanent or incapable of surpassing itself. For the two hypotheses developed has been key the theoretical perspective provided by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari in his studies on capitalism. </span></p></div></div></div>

ABSTRACT: InDie Frage nach dem Ding, Martin Heidegger characterizes Galileo as an important transitional figure in the struggle to replace the Aristotelian conception of nature with that of Newton. However, Heidegger only attends to Galileo’s modernity and not to those Aristotelian elements still discernible in Galileo’s work. This article fleshes out both aspects in Galileo in light of Heidegger’s discussion. It concludes by arguing that the lacuna in Heidegger’s account of Galileo is the consequence of Heidegger’s own self-conscious modernity − a modernity that he slyly hints at in a remark he makes in FD concerning Galileo and Democritus.