Role In Aristotle Research Articles

Prime Matter and the Quantum Wavefunction

Prime matter plays an indispensable role in Aristotle’s philosophy, enabling him to avoid the pitfalls of both naïve Platonism and nominalism. Prime matter is best thought of as a kind of infinitely divisible and atomless bare particularity, grounding the distinctness of distinct members of the same species. Such bare particularity is needed in symmetrical situations, like a world consisting of indistinguishable Max Black spheres. Bare particularity is especially important in modern physics, given the homogeneity and isotropy of space. With the importance of fields in classical, relativistic, and quantum physics, we have good reason to prefer something like Aristotle’s continuous, infinitely divisible matter over indivisible particles. Mass and energy in relativistic physics also points in the direction of prime matter as the enduring substrate of these quantities. Recent work on Aristotelian interpretations of quantum mechanics, further underscores the contemporary relevance of prime matter.

On tradition, criticism, and green marketing

Reviewer Frederik Appel Olsen takes issue with the approach we present in The Virtues of Green Marketing: A Constructive Take on Corporate Rhetoric (Palgrave Macmillan). In this response, we point out three aspects where Appel Olsen paints a misleading picture of our book. They concern a) the role of history in contemporary thinking, b) the role of Aristotle in our argumentation, and c) the legitimate place of rhetorical criticism. Thus, our response treats fundamental questions for the field of rhetoric.

Political Phantasies: Aristotle on Imagination and Collective Action

AbstractThis article provides a new account of the role of phantasia, imagination, in Aristotle's political thought. Phantasia plays a key role in Aristotle's psychology and is crucial for explaining any kind of movement and action. I argue that this insight holds for collective actions as well. By offering a reconsideration of the famous “Wisdom of the Multitude” passage, this article shows that the capacity of a multitude to act together is tied to its ability to share a collective phantasma: a mental representation of the practical end or goal of their collective effort as good and thus worthy of pursuit. However, I argue that given the subjective nature of phantasia, acting together can be hard. I conclude that since one's phantasia is shaped by one's moral character, a community can achieve a shared phantasma—and thus secure collective action—by means of persuasion, habituation, and education.

The Matter of Virtue: Women's Ethical Action from Chaucer to Shakespeare

The Matter of Virtue: Women's Ethical Action from Chaucer to Shakespeare

Aristotle’s Solution to Zeno’s Arrow Paradox and its Implications

Aristotle’s solution to Zeno’s arrow paradox differs markedly from the so called at-at solution championed by Russell, which has become the orthodox view in contemporary philosophy. The latter supposes that motion consists in simply being at different places at different times. It can boast parsimony because it eliminates velocity from the ontology. Aristotle, by contrast, solves the paradox by denying that the flight of the arrow is composed of instants; rather, on my reading, he holds that the flight is a unity which is ontologically prior to the temporal parts that may be abstracted from it. I label this position temporal holism; and an entity that is ontological prior to its temporal parts lasting. Lasting, I argue, is the key to Aristotle’s solution to the arrow paradox, but it has received insufficient attention in the relevant literature. I therefore set out here to investigate lasting and highlight its major role in Aristotle’s metaphysics more broadly, and in his solution to other problems of change (e.g. the reality of change). I show, too, how lasting within a contemporary context underwrites a parsimonious and intuitive solution to the arrow paradox that retains instantaneous velocity, and hence (inter alia) solves a problem for those who think velocity is required within the ontology to underwrite certain causal roles.

Explanatory Causes in Aristotle’s Constitutional Theory

This article defends the thesis that the theory of explanatory causes plays a substantive and nontrivial role in Aristotle’s constitutional theory. The Aristotelian πολιτεία, I contend, is the formal cause of the polis and it is determined by the conception of εὐδαιμονία prevalent among the dominant or ruling political group in the polis. Section 1 defends the general claim that Aristotle’s constitutional analysis is informed by his theory of explanatory causes and the specific claim that the πολιτεία is a formal cause. Section 2 then connects the status of the πολιτεία as a formal cause to the diverse conceptions of εὐδαιμονία which determine regime-types and their laws.

Aristotle's philosophy on happiness and its meaning to educate Vietnamese today

Introduction. This article focuses on clarifying Aristotle's views on happiness. The objective is to describe the development of the idea of happiness from ancient times to the present to explain the role of happiness in social life. Every person needs happiness, and every society wants to achieve it. Aristotle considered happiness to be a human epistemological process. Happiness plays a vital role in human life's purpose. Happiness is also a right that every person should have in their life. The purpose is to find out the content of happiness and the method to achieve happiness for people, especially Vietnamese people, in the process of global integration. They are educating people toward a happy life. Materials and methods. Based on the study of Aristotle's Nicomaque Ethics to clarify the happiness category. The work played a pivotal role in Aristotle's determination of happiness. The article uses materialist dialectic to explain arguments about happiness expressed by Aristotle in ten separate books and based on notes from his lectures at the Lyceum. In addition, the article uses analytical and synthetic methods to clarify the point of happiness in the history of human philosophical thought from ancient, medieval, and modern times thereby drawing the content of Aristotle's view of happiness. Results and discussions. Aristotle was the first to address happiness and research on happiness. He affirmed that happiness is a need, a good nature of human beings. Happiness is considered under moral value as a criterion to evaluate a person's virtue, so it has moral significance. Happiness is human action in life towards beauty. Happiness is also a cognitive ability in humans; through training, training, and education, people can achieve the value of happiness. Therefore, it is necessary to educate people to achieve happiness; however, the happiness of Aristotle is from a spiritual perspective. Meanwhile, material life plays a vital role in shaping the concept of human happiness. Therefore, Aristotle has not mentioned the decisive role of material life. At the same time, happiness is the factor that individuals do well, society is also good, but the part of social happiness places on the individual's view of happiness. Practical significance. Clarifying Aristotle's perspective on happiness, the article points out the amount of socio-economic development orientation from a macro perspective in building a happy Vietnam. The nation's happiness is the development of both material and spiritual factors. On that basis, personal happiness is the cause of national construction and renovation. Since then, for Vietnam to be happy, it is necessary to improve the people's role as the master of the country, to take the people as the root. It is essential to educate Vietnamese people comprehensively so they realize that their happiness is closely related to the people's happiness in the cause of building the nation's happiness. The third is educating people about the spirit of building happiness in the government associated with the country's socio-economic development because the happiness of the Vietnamese people is to ensure material and spiritual benefits for the Vietnamese people.

ARISTOTLE’S CONTRAST BETWEEN EPISTEME AND DOXA IN ITS CONTEXT (POSTERIOR ANALYTICS I.33)

Abstract Aristotle contrasts episteme and doxa through the key notions of universal and necessary. These notions have played a central role in Aristotle’s characterization of scientific knowledge in the previous chapters of APo. They are not spelled out in APo I.33, but work as a sort of reminder that packs an adequate characterization of scientific knowledge and thereby gives a highly specified context for Aristotle’s contrast between episteme and doxa. I will try to show that this context introduces a contrast in terms of explanatory claims: on the one hand, episteme covers those claims which capture explanatory connections that are universal and necessary and thereby deliver scientific understanding; on the other hand, doxa covers the explanatory attempts that fail at doing so.

Dianoia w Etykach Arystotelesa

Artykuł jest próbą wyjaśnienia znaczenia terminu dianoia w Etykach Arystotelesa. Z analiz tekstów Arystotelesa wynika, że dianoia jest stosowaniem myślenia (to noein), które dotyczy bycia (to einai). Dlatego dianoia jest czynnością potwierdzenia (kataphasis), „że jest”, lub zaprzeczenia (apophasis), „że nie jest”. Mając na uwadze fakt, że dianoia jest własnością duszy mającej logos, Arystoteles zastanawia się jakie jest jej znaczenie w postępowaniu (praxis) człowieka. Termin dianoia odgrywa ważną rolę w Arystotelesowskim oposie postanowienia (prohairesis) i dobrowolności (hekousion). W przypadku postanowienia, które jest przyczyną postępowania, dianoia, jeżeli potwierdza propozycję, przyznaje rację (logos) a jeżeli zaprzecza, odmawia racji. Natomiast postępowanie dobre lub złe musi być dobrowolne. Postępowanie jest dobrowolne, jeśli jest postępowaniem z siebie (eph’ heauton). To natomiast jest możliwe dzięki myśleniu (dianoian). Dobrowolne postępowanie może być dobre dzięki rozsądkowi (phronesis), który jest doskonałością dianoetyczną. Takie postępowanie jest więc według prawidłowej racji (kata ton orthon logon).

Understanding Aristotle's Notion of the Mean: A Case Study in Anger

In this paper, I argue that purely quantitative understandings of Aristotle's concept of "the mean" (as presented in Nicomachean Ethics) are oversimplified, and I make this argument by analyzing the particular emotion of anger. Anger, I contend, helps to complicate the purely quantitative understanding of the mean, insofar as, I argue, the amount of anger experienced is not the morally salient feature in determining whether or not the anger is virtuous. Rather, anger is one example of an emotion or trait for which other, non-quantitative parameters of the mean are more salient, giving us a more nuanced understanding of what the mean is. Anger is virtuous not when it is in the right measurable degree, but rather when it is directed at the proper target. In this way, the virtue-making property of anger is distinctly qualitative. Examining anger provides insight into the concept of the mean and its role in Aristotle's ethics, and also helps to shed light on contemporary debates about political anger.

Thomas Aquinas and Giles of Rome on the Reception of Forms without the Matter

AbstractIn a passage of De Anima II, chapter 12 (424a17-24), Aristotle makes a general claim about the senses, which is condensed in the formula that the senses are receptive of the sensible forms without the matter. While it is clear that this formula must play an important theoretical role in Aristotle’s account, it is far from clear what it exactly means. Its interpretation is still a focus of controversy among contemporary scholars. In this article the author presents the exegeses of this formula proposed by the two most authoritative commentators on De anima from the second half of the thirteenth century, namely, Thomas Aquinas and Giles of Rome. Both commentators assume that with this formula and in particular with the qualification “without the matter” Aristotle intends to characterize an “intentional” reception of a form, and to contrast it with a “natural” reception, but they give different accounts of intentionality.

A Comparative Study on the Theory of Form and Matter and Its Role in Aristotle and Avicenna's Cosmology

Aristotle's cosmology, especially his viewpoint about generation, is deeply rooted in the theory of form and matter. Although Avicenna accepts the Aristotelian theory of form and matter, he makes some alterations in this theory and redefines it in a new manner. His theory of form and matter despite its Aristotelian background is mostly influenced by his own metaphysical bases which are originally inspired by the monotheistic spirit of Islamic teachings. As a result, while in Aristotelian cosmology the prime matter of the world is eternal and uncreated, Avicenna by making a distinction between temporal eternity and essential eternity of the world, rejects the former while accepts the latter. Accordingly, the prime matter is essentially in need of an efficient cause to bring it to existence. Besides, since prime matter as the mere potentiality cannot exist without any actuality or form, necessarily the efficient cause at the same time bestows forms upon it. Consequently, while in Aristotelian viewpoint, forms are emerged in the prime matter due to its eternal motion toward the full actuality, or as he occasionally calls it, unmoved mover, in Avicenna’s philosophy forms are bestowed upon matter by an external cause and the internal motion of matter just plays a preparatory role for its actualization.

This

The expression tode ti, commonly translated as ‘a this’, plays a key role in Aristotle’s metaphysics. Drawing lightly on theories of demonstratives in contemporary linguistics, I discuss the expression, its extension and the interpretation of its philosophical role in Aristotle and Plato. I pay particular attention to the questions whether matter or nonsubstantial individuals fall under the extension of the expression.

Partial Truth in Aristotle’s Metaphysics

This paper explores the status of partial truths, i.e., statements that are partially true and partially false, in Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Contrary to what some scholars have suggested, it argues that partial truths are not confined to reputable opinions (endoxa) that have not yet been clarified and disambiguated. Rather, they have a more central role in Aristotle’s investigation. First, I propose that the fundamental question of being, namely, “What is substance?” is such that even our best attempts to answer it may never yield a full or complete truth. Second, at least in some instances, Aristotle does not seem interested in disambiguating the assertions of previous thinkers to attain propositions that are fully true or fully false. This is the case because our capacity to gain insights into the nature of things is mediated by our reflections on previous theories and on the problems that they incur. It may thus be desirable to retain some partial truths that, owing to their very ambiguity, force us to interrogate the nature of things more deeply.

Aristote : poursuivre et fuir

ARISTOTLE ON PURSUIT AND AVOIDANCE. Pleasure and pain play an essential role in Aristotle’s conception of the goal‑directed activities of animals and human beings, since they trigger the reactions of pursuit or avoidance, and hence the entire behavior. The present paper inquires into Aristotle’s analysis of this phenomenon on the basis of De Anima III , chapter 7 and De Motu Animalium, chapters 6‑7‑8. The crucial move in this analysis is the definition of pleasure and pain given in both treatises : “To feel pleasure or pain is to actualize through the sensitive mean towards what is good or bad, as such”. The paper examines the meaning of this definition and shows how it connects and agrees with the explanation of the principles of the physical motions of animals in the De Motu Animalium.

Akratic Ignorance and Endoxic Inquiry

Aristotle claims in the Metaphysics that in order to be resourceful in first philosophic inquiry it is useful to go through perplexity well. In this essay, the author argues that that perplexity plays a parallel role in Aristotle's account of practical, deliberative inquiry in the Nicomachean Ethics. He does so by offering an interpretation of the relation between Aristotle's account of akratic ignorance in Nicomachean Ethics 7 and his emphasis on the necessity of going through perplexity when inquiring into akrasia. Along the way, the author tries to shed some additional light on Aristotle's conception of endoxa, his account of the so-called practical syllogism, and the distinction between ethical virtue simply and "authoritative" virtue. But the intention throughout the essay is to examine the role that perplexity about the phenomena of ethical life plays in Aristotle's account of the kind of thoughtfulness required for excellence of character.

Ontological Separation in Aristotle’s Metaphysics

Ontological separation plays a key role in Aristotle’s metaphysical project: substances alone are ontologically χωριστόν. The standard view identifies Aristotelian ontological separation with ontological independence, so that ontological separation is a non-symmetric relation. I argue that there is strong textual evidence that Aristotle employs an asymmetric notion of separation in theMetaphysics—one that involves the dependence of other entities on the independent entity. I argue that this notion allows Aristotle to prevent the proliferation of substance-kinds and thus to secure the unity of his metaphysical system.

Antonella Liuzzo Scorpo, Friendship in Medieval Iberia: Historical, Legal and Literary Perspectives. Farnham, Surrey, UK, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014. Pp. ix, 248. $124.95. ISBN: 978-1-4724-1202-7.

Antonella Liuzzo Scorpo, <i>Friendship in Medieval Iberia: Historical, Legal and Literary Perspectives</i>. Farnham, Surrey, UK, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014. Pp. ix, 248. $124.95. ISBN: 978-1-4724-1202-7.

Aristotle on Prohairesis

Prohairesis plays a central role in Aristotle's moral psychology. It is prohairesis that determines an action to be rational, that provides the proximate efficient or moving cause of rational action, and that better reveals one's character than the action itself. This paper will discuss (1) Aristotle's shifted emphases when speaking of prohairesis in different ethical treatises; (2) Aristotle's pursuit of the nature of prohairesis and his special argumentative strategy in dealing with prohairesis; (3) the structure, i.e., the desiderative and deliberative components of prohairesis; and will conclude with some remarks about the significance of prohairesis.Â

ΑΠΟΡΙΑ und ΑΠΑΤΗ in der aristotelischen Dialektik

Both words ἀπορία (difficulty, puzzle) and ἀπάτη (trick, deceit) are regarded here as representatives of the meaning „path, way“. This article focuses mainly on their use as key concepts in the theory of Aristotle’s dialectic and secondly on their use in the practice of Aristotle’s investigations. I argue that the two notions have a special and important role in Aristotle’s conception of dialectic as expressed in the Topics and in the Sophistici Elenchi, according to his view that it is the job of the dialectician to be familiar with the real and the apparent ways of reasoning. Thus, in the Topics Aristotle deals with genuine difficulties (ἀπορίαι), and in the Sophistici Elenchi with fallacies (ἀπάται).