Aristotle's Text Research Articles

Philosophy

This year, Aristotle readers could purchase something old and something new for their libraries. The old thing is Diana Quarantotto's edited volume on Aristotle's Physics I, published in 2018 but now finally available in paperback at an affordable price. People will remember that this book includes excellent commentaries on each chapter of Physics, like those by Andrea Falcon, Timothy Clarke, Laura M. Castelli, Lindsay Judson, David Charles, and Isván Bodnár, to name a few. The volume also contains a preface, an illuminating methodological introduction, and a collaborative translation of Aristotle's text. The main takeaway is a balanced appraisal of the importance of Physics I and its introductory role within Aristotle's physical project.

ARISTOTLE’S EMENDATION OF ONTOLOGY

In our inquiry, we investigate elements of the foundations of Aristotle’s ontology. We concentrate our attention on aspects of the substance and the universal: we analyse the features which belong to substance qua substance and to universal qua universal, on the one hand, and the features which cannot belong to substance and universal, on the other hand. The mutual incompatibility between substance and universal and between the features which are respectively connected to substance and to universal are the central interest of our investigation. We furthermore inquire into the consequences of a wrong interpretation of the universal. The texts of Aristotle on which we base our study are Metaphysics Zeta 13, Zeta 14, and Zeta 16.

ENERGEIA AND ENTELECHEIA – FIRST AND SECOND ACT. OPERARI SEQUITUR ESSE IN ARISTOTLE AND AQUINAS

The term “act” is difficult to grasp since it is one of the simple notions which can be comprehended only by analogy. But it is also one of the most important concept in Aristotle and Aquinas. This paper attempts to have a closer look to the termin peripatetic perspective, especially dealing with the connection of the act with the demonstration of immortality of the soul. The first part discusses the two terms energeia and entelecheia, concentrating on the diff erence between them which can be seen in the text of Aristotle. Second part deals with the application of those two types of acts in philosophy of Aquinas, especially when he uses them to demonstrate that the existence of action per se must point at existence per se. It also shows that Aquinas seems to link those two terms with the concepts of first and second act, to cover the gap which occurred when two Greek terms (energeia and entelecheia) were rendered by one Latin term actus.

The Text of Aristotle’s Poetics and its Arabic Translation

Abstract This contribution highlights the importance of the Arabic version of the Poetics in establishing the text of this work. This is a well-known fact, expressly considered in the most recent editio maior of the Poetics. Nonetheless, the latter edition does not discuss all the evidence relating to the Arabic translation. This article examines two much-discussed passages of the Poetics (1454b30-32, 1448a25-28). In the first case, the Arabic testimony, despite not transmitting the text that should be edited, helps to elucidate which variant is preferred. In the second case, the text of the Arabic translation raises the question of whether its variant reading should replace the text accepted in all the editions published over the last two centuries.

Hart on the role of justice in the concept of law: some further remarks

ABSTRACT A correct understanding of Hart’s idea of justice and a detailed assessment of the connection between justice and law contributes to a better understanding of his legal-philosophical project. Always consistent with his argument on the separability between law and morality, Hart endorses an account of formal intralegal justice that is intimately connected to law, but not necessarily dependent upon non-legal principles of substantive justice. Hart’s theoretical commitment to a composite concept of formal justice encompasses two elements: first, the imperative to treat like cases alike and different cases differently, and second, the underlying legal criteria that specify the relevant measure of likeness and difference. These elements of Hart’s theory of justice can be traced back to their doctrinal precedents in the texts of Aristotle, Sidgwick, Perelman, Ross, and Del Vecchio. Commentators and critics of Hart’s account of justice seem to agree that this account ought to be expanded by exploring its full effects on the foundations of Hart’s concept of law. When this is achieved, a third element of Hart’s intralegal justice emerges, namely, its rights-allocating function, which is deeply embedded in his account of the rule of recognition, his concept of a legal system, and his idea of law.

Summaries and Comments

Summaries and Comments Elizabeth C. Shaw, Staff* and Mor Segev ARISTOTLE. Parva Naturalia with On the Motion of Animals. Translated by David Bolotin. Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2021. xii + 248 pp. $45.00 This volume offers a translation of Aristotle's Parva Naturalia (PN) alongside De motu animalium (MA). Bolotin mainly uses Biehl's Teubner edition of Sens. and Mem., Muginer's Budé edition of the rest of the PN, and Louis's Budé edition of MA, but he pays attention to, and occasionally adopts, readings based on other editions. Deviations from the editions primarily used are often motivated by faithfulness to the manuscripts. Perhaps the greatest merit of Bolotin's numerous footnotes is that they routinely alert the reader to manuscript variants and editorial emendations, and to the differences in translation that might result from these. The footnotes also provide cross-references and explanations of Greek words, as well as Bolotin's interpretive stance on various issues. The translation itself aims at literalness, bracketing supplementations to the Greek and frequently adding parentheses transliterating key terms and difficult phrases. In places, Bolotin uses the same translation for different Greek words or translates occurrences of the same Greek word differently (thus, he uses "thought" for dianoia, doxa, and nous, and at times renders dianoia and nous also as "intellect"). These decisions are often (though not always) supplemented with transliterations in parentheses and/or explanatory footnotes. But even where a clarification is provided, it still would have been preferable for the choice of words in the translation to correspond more closely to the Greek. To better evaluate Bolotin's translation, let us compare Mem. 453a14–18 as it appears both there and in David Bloch's translation (Leiden, 2007): Bolotin: "A sign that the pathos is bodily and that recollection is a search for an appearance in something of that sort [that is, in something bodily,] is that it causes some people much annoyance when they are unable to recollect, even after directing their thought very much [toward doing so], and when they are no longer attempting [to], they recollect none the less." Bloch: "Now, that the affection is something corporeal, and that recollection is a search for an image in something of a corporeal type, [End Page 587] is proved by the fact that some people are bothered when they cannot recollect, even though they focus their thought extremely hard, and are still bothered even when they are no longer trying to recollect." Bolotin's "the pathos is bodily" reflects Biehl's text (esti sōmatikon to pathos), without indicating alternatives (Bloch's edition has sōmatikon ti to pathos). The square brackets in Bolotin's translation helpfully indicate what is inexplicit in Aristotle's text. The renditions of sēmeion as "[a] sign" and of parenochlein as "causes … much annoyance" are both in keeping with Bolotin's general aim at literalness and seem preferable to Bloch's respective choices. Bolotin merely transliterates pathos (Bloch: "affection"), here and elsewhere, arguing that it has "no adequate English equivalent." But since controversy rages over the proper translation of phantasma (Bolotin: "appearance"; Bloch: "image"), it would have been reasonable to leave it untranslated as well, or at least to allude to the controversy in a footnote (elsewhere in his translation, Bolotin does often transliterate phantasma and its cognate phantasia in parentheses). Finally, whereas Bolotin's reading of ouden hētton at 453a18 as indicating continued recollection has the merit of corresponding directly to the subsequent point about involuntary recollection (453a20–3), Bloch's understanding of it as indicating the persisting irritation after a failure to recollect plausibly produces an argument for the bodily involvement in recollection based not on the occurrence of involuntary recollection (without further explanation) but, rather, on a distinctly psychophysiological occurrence associated with recollection (see the comment on this part of the text in G. R. T. Ross's commentary [Cambridge, 1906]). Both readings are possible and have had their proponents. But, given the main goals of Bolotin's translation and the scope of his footnotes, it would have been useful for him to present the alternative reading here, and indeed to do so more frequently elsewhere. This could have...

REREADING METAPHYSICS Ε2-3: ARISTOTLE'S ARGUMENT AGAINST DETERMINISM, AND HOW AVERROES TWISTED IT IN HIS LONG COMMENTARY

AbstractIn the fresh reading proposed here of the still not satisfactorily interpreted passages in Metaphysics Ε2-3, Aristotle emerges as making a case against determinism based on a robust notion of the accident. Accidental beings are uncaused causes and have their rightful place in Aristotle's ontology. The resulting physical indeterminism is here used as a litmus test for the exegetical practice of the great Commentator, Averroes, whose self-proclaimed, and later proverbial, loyalty to Aristotle's text will be shown to give way to idiosyncratic interpretations at times. His explanations of Metaphysics Ε2-3 are sparse and no less obscure than Aristotle's text. It is only when read together with his commentaries on the Physics, to which he explicitly refers twice in his Long commentary on Metaphysics Ε2-3, that a surprising picture emerges. Averroes recycles the notion of the accident, now reconceptualised in cosmological terms, and – putting it to the opposite use of Aristotle's – weaves it into an original theory of motion that integrates both supra- and sublunar realms into a deterministic framework of uninterrupted causal chains, thus safeguarding the principle of Divine providence.

Ян Амос Коменский и его (анти)аристотелева «Физика»: пример попытки преодоления Аристотеля в натурфилософии XVII в.

At the beginning of the 17th century there have been many attempts to overcome Aristotelian physics. One of the trends was the so-called "Mosaic physics" based on Scripture, not on the texts of Aristotle. The “Physicae Synopsis” by J.A. Komensky shows one of the options for such overcoming, with all its difficulties and successes.

SWIFTS AND HIRUNDINES IN ARISTOTLE'S HISTORIA ANIMALIVM

Aristotle's brief accounts of some swifts and hirundines in Hist. an. 1.1 (487b24–31) and 9.30 (618a31–b2) list several species whose identification has always been taken for difficult, and continues to vary from translation to translation. This note clarifies this small issue on the basis of Aristotle's text alone. I therefore assume that both passages, each introduced by a slightly different use of the term ἄποδες, offer sufficient information for recognizing the species in question. I will first translate and briefly comment upon the passage from Book 1, then do the same with the text from Book 9.

Рыбы, живущие в земле Аристотель. О дыхании 9, 475b 10-11

Many translators and commentators of Aristotle's treatise On respiration are puzzled by his statement at De resp. 9, 475b 10-11 that “most fishes live in the earth … and are found by digging” (τῶν ἰχθύων οἱ πολλοὶ ζῶσιν ἐν τῇ γῇ). Indeed, this phrase seems to contradict not only common sense, but also Aristotle’s own words in the History of animals and other biological treatises, that aquatic animals, like fishes who take in water for cooling, cannot survive for a long time outside their native element. The paper shows that the replacement of the expression “most fishes” (οἱ πολλοὶ) by “many fishes” (πολλοὶ) proposed by W. Ogle and D. Ross does not solve the problem, since the few rare species of the land fish reported by Theophrastus in the treatise On creatures that live on dry land can hardly be called “many fishes”. In my opinion, the reason why the Aristotelian text is so puzzling is a misunderstanding of the expression ἐν τῇ γῇ. Although Ogle and Ross believe this to mean "on dry land", Aristotle may have in mind the mud and sand on the seabed. According to the philosopher, most fish do periodically bury themselves in mud at the bottom of the sea or rivers, thus maintaining the balance of heat and cold necessary for their life. Therefore, I affirm that the text of Aristotle does not need to be corrected.

Aristotle in Prussian Gymnasiums: Why the Texts of the Ancient Philosopher Became Popular for Teaching Logic

During the nineteenth century, German philosophy developed from a type of general knowledge to an academic discipline at the university. Changes across disciplines to the philosophy of science and psychological surveys created new challenges for the place and purpose of philosophy in the educational system. The content of logic courses for secondary schools (Gymnasiums) was centred on the dissociation of nature and the scale of logic.In this paper, I will examine a number of projects for teaching philosophy at the secondary school level from new humanism to reduce philosophical to philological concerns about different projects offered by Niethammer, Hegel and Herbart. Then, I will focus on the most successful – Adolf Trendelenburg’s Elements of Aristotle’s Logic (1st edition of 1836). This work is a compilation of the logical texts of Aristotle, and for as long as sixty years, it was an official textbook in Prussian secondary schools. The aim of the paper is to show how the rethinking of Aristotle’s heritage affected the theoretical and ideological expectations of propaedeutic courses and transformed the image of logic as a philosophical discipline.

On Topical Logic During the Late Middle Ages. A Study of Saint-Omer, BA., Ms. 609

The present study provides a critical edition of the commentary on Aristotle's Topica I contained in Saint-Omer, Bibliothèque d'Agglomération, Ms. 609, alongside a discussion of its authorship and some preliminary observations regarding its content. It is argued (1) that this commentary was written in the University of Louvain around 1502; (2) that it may have been authored by a Louvain logician named Jean Fabri de Valenciennes (fl. 1495-1505); and (3) that its interpretation of Aristotle's text owes to the commentary on the Topica by Albert the Great (1193-1280), who was one of the main authorities of the fifteenth-century via antiqua.

Aristotle and Łukasiewicz on Existential Import

ABSTRACT:Jan Łukasiewicz's treatise on Aristotle's Syllogistic, published in the 1950s, has been very influential in framing the contemporary understanding of Aristotle's logical systems. However, Łukasiewicz's interpretation is based on a number of tendentious claims, not least, on the claim that the syllogistic was intended to apply only to nonempty terms. I show that this interpretation is not true to Aristotle's text and that a more coherent and faithful interpretation admits empty terms while maintaining all the relations of the traditional square of opposition.

Aquinas and the Nicomachean Ethics ed. by Tobias Hoffmann, Jörn Müller, and Matthias Perkams (review)

Reviewed by: Aquinas and the Nicomachean Ethics ed. by Tobias Hoffmann, Jörn Müller, and Matthias Perkams Anthony Celano Tobias Hoffmann, Jörn Müller, and Matthias Perkams, editors. Aquinas and the Nicomachean Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. x + 275. Cloth, $95.00. The main question addressed in this volume is to what extent did Thomas Aquinas “deal with and depend on Aristotle’s Ethics” (1). The editors and contributors discuss the setting and intent of Thomas’s commentary (Sententiae supra libros Ethicorum) on the text of Aristotle, which was likely completed during his magisterial activity at Paris in 1271–72. They consider various scholarly opinions on the commentary, including those concerning its date of composition and whether Thomas expresses his own views, or merely provides a careful exposition of Aristotle’s text. An important topic for all contributors is the consideration of the commentary in light of Thomas’s theological treatises, especially the Summa theologiae, in order to understand how Thomas’s reading of Aristotle’s moral philosophy contributes to his own understanding of important issues in ethics. The first two articles by Terrence Irwin and Michael Pakaluk discuss the accuracy and general approach of Thomas toward Aristotle. Both rightly indicate that Thomas does not approach Aristotle in the manner of a modern scholar who seeks faithfully to explain the text, but rather as a way to discover truth. Although Thomas always attempts to comprehend Aristotle’s thought thoroughly, he does not hesitate to indicate its limits when compared to religious belief. Thomas is generally reluctant to criticize Aristotle directly and often provides a charitable reading for controversial ideas. When discussing the question of the possibility of perfect beatitude, Thomas claims that Aristotle refrained from such a discussion in Ethics, because the fate of the separate soul belongs to a different science. Irwin concludes that we ought to take Thomas seriously as a historically accurate interpreter of Aristotle, even if he does introduce un-Aristotelian topics, such as the will, into his understanding of Aristotle (30). Jörn Müller’s article builds upon his earlier work on Albert the Great on the relation between happiness and beatitude. Müller claims that Aristotle offers “not one unified account of happiness, but rather a ‘two-fold happiness’” (55). Albert did indeed accept the notion of two distinct types of happiness (duefelicitates), but Thomas rejects this interpretation in favor of one that views Aristotelian eudaimonia as the single perfection of human beings within a lifetime. Müller indicates the importance of the qualification by Aristotle that human beings can only be beati ut homines for Thomas’s view that perfect beatitude may be attained in the afterlife (62). Here Müller believes that Thomas seems brazenly to ignore Aristotle’s designation of the contemplative life as perfect happiness. Thomas, however, did not have so much difficulty in showing that the philosophical life does not meet the criterion for ultimate finality and self-sufficiency, since he finds support in Aristotle’s own [End Page 376] text. In book X of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle does indeed find human contemplation lacking in comparison to the perfect continuous activity of divine beings. Human beings cannot engage in perfect activity since they always must tend to biological and social needs. Contemplation is perfect in that it actualizes the supreme potential within the human soul (nous), but it is not perfect without qualification. Eight of the remaining nine articles consider individual virtues and their treatment in Thomas’s commentary and in his more systematic theological works. The contributors agree that Thomas’s astute interpretation of Aristotle’s philosophy does not unduly limit his ability to draw upon various sources to arrive at his own conclusions. A particularly important essay concerns the virtue of prudence (phronesis), which Tobias Hoffmann discusses clearly and accurately. Hoffmann correctly identifies synderesis, the innate habit of recognizing universal moral principles, as an important element in Thomas’s own thought. Through synderesis, Thomas anchors prudence in natural reason, rather than in the moral virtues themselves, and thereby avoids a circular causal relationship between desire and reason (174). Hoffmann emphasizes the importance of particular judgments, or the minor premises, in the...

ON EMENDING AND NOT EMENDING THE TEXT OF SOME PASSAGES IN ARISTOTLE'SETHICA EUDEMIA

The text of Aristotle'sEthica Eudemia(EE) is often in need of emendation, especially because of the particular fault in the manuscripts of misreading one letter for another or misdividing letters to form words. Scholars have already done fine work in correcting many of these errors (especially at the beginning of 8.1), but more needs to be done. A second problem with the text does not have to do with matters of spelling or grammar (or even of punctuation), but rather with those of philosophical sense. For, as scholars have noted, theEEis marked by considerable compression of thought, and this compression leads scholars to propose changes where, on further consideration, it can be shown that not change of words but change of comprehension is needed.

Metaphysics XII 7, 1072A27-B1: An Argument of Identity

The paper analyses the argumentative structure of a difficult passage from Aristotle's Metaphysics XII 7 on the basis of a topos of sameness provided in Top. VII 1. In doing this the article gives an example of how Aristotle's treatises on dialectic can prove useful to understand what he says in his more philosophically committed writings. The article also shows how general argumentative techniques and more or less explicit specific philosophical assumptions interact in shaping Aristotle's arguments and how the distinction of these different factors can help us have a better grasp on Aristotle's text.

How Theology, Imagination, and the Spirit of Inquiry Shaped Natural Philosophy in the Late Middle Ages

Historians of science have long debated historiographical issues and have even come to regard some of them as rather passe. The issues I shall consider will be applied to late Middle Ages and, where necessary, extended to early modern period, or, as I shall refer to it, Scientific Revolution. In broad range of medieval science and philosophy, I shall focus almost exclusively on philosophy, because, as we shall see, philosophers posed questions that probed all aspects of world: nature, supernatural, and an imaginary world of hypothetical and possible.1 It included bits and pieces of virtually all of contemporary sciences, as well as thoughts and ideas that would be appropriate to that only came into being in modern era. It was not until of astronomy, optics, and mechanics - exact sciences, known as middle sciences to Aristotle and his followers in late Middle Ages - became fully integrated with philosophy in seventeenth century that early modern science emerged. Although process of integration began in Middle Ages, it accelerated rapidly in seventeenth century. The importance of union between exact and philosophy was truly significant. Other societies that at one time had well-developed mathematics and astronomy, but failed to generate, and maintain, a well-developed philosophy, eventually saw their mathematical fade away. A prime example is civilization of Islam.2 In what follows, I shall focus on two basic issues that are most relevant to philosophy and should be of great interest to historians of science. I shall first consider influence of theology and religion on philosophy and exact sciences; and then investigate a topic that, although connected to first theme, emphasizes role of reason, imagination, and counterfactuals, which taken together produced a spirit of inquiry that encouraged investigation of nature and development of science. Because philosophy is focus of my essay, I shall now present a brief summary of highlights of medieval philosophy.NATURAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE LATE MIDDLE AGESDuring Middle Ages, philosophy was solidly based upon Aristotle's natural books [libri naturales], which included Physics, On heavens, On generation and corruption, Meteorology, On soul, and The short physical treatises (Parva naturalia). Since these works treated different aspects of physical cosmos, philosophy ranged over all aspects of physical world that involved change. For most scholastic philosophers, subject matter of philosophy was 'mobile being [ens mobile]', a term that Thomas Aquinas used. 'Mobile being' rather than 'mobile body' was used because it embraced motion of both material and immaterial substances. Natural philosophy was concerned with change as manifested by things in some kind of motion. As an anonymous fourteenth-century author expressed it, the whole of movable being is proper subject of philosophy.3 Most of subjects discussed were drawn from broad range of Aristotle's philosophy.Medieval philosophy was presented in three quite different literary formats. The first, commonly in use through most of thirteenth century, was commentary. In this format, whichever of Aristotle's books was subject of commentary, author would present a few lines of Aristotle's text and then explain them while also commenting on them. He would then do same for text immediately following, and move through entire treatise in same fashion, paragraph after paragraph until commentary was completed. The second, and most popular, way of proceeding was by way of a series of questions, each of which usually began with word 'whether [utrum] In Physics, we could readily meet a question such as Whether existence of a vacuum is possible; in On heavens, we might confront question Whether whole earth is habitable; from Meteorology, a question on visual rays would be fairly common, such as Whether every visual ray is refracted in meeting a denser or rarer medium; and in questions on On generation and corruption, it would be frequently asked Whether elements remain [or persist] formally in a compound [or mixed] body. …

Spinoza: Une Lecture d'Aristote (review)

Reviewed by: Spinoza: Une Lecture d'Aristote Yitzhak Melamed Frédéric Manzini. Spinoza: Une Lecture d'Aristote. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2009. Pp. 334. Paper, $39.95. The occasion that prompted the current study was the discovery of a tiny typo in the text of Spinoza's Cogitata Metaphysica—the appendix to his 1663 book, Descartes' Principle of Philosophy. As it turned out, this typo, a reference to Book XI instead of Book XII of Aristotle's Metaphysics, was inadvertently reproduced by Spinoza from a contemporary edition of Aristotle's works, allowing Manzini to identify precisely the edition used by Spinoza as the 1548 edition of Aristotle's works printed in Basel by Johannes Oporinus. It also led him to conclude that, contrary to the belief of many, Spinoza read Aristotle's text very closely, and convinced him of the importance of studying the dialogue between the two great philosophers. The book is comprised of three parts, reversing the order of Spinoza's presentation of his philosophy in the Ethics. The first part discusses Spinoza's ethical and political theories—where, the author claims, the influence of Aristotle is most manifest—against the background of the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics. Here, much attention is given to the notions of the summum bonum and beatitude. The second part discusses Aristotelian and Spinozistic theories of knowledge. In the third and final part, dedicated to metaphysics and first philosophy, the author compares the philosophers' absolutely impersonal conceptions of God, examines their conceptions of substance, and develops a reading of what he calls Spinoza's "ousio-theology" (305). According to Manzini, Aristotle was one of Spinoza's first major philosophical interlocutors, and there is no doubt he is right about this. This conclusion, however, is unsurprising, [End Page 126] since seventeenth-century philosophers, whether devoted Aristotelians or determined anti-Aristotelians, conversed in an Aristotelian philosophical language. Manzini shows that Spinoza engaged directly with Aristotle's text, but also tries to substantiate an even stronger claim by stressing the agreements between the two philosophers. There are two reasons that make it difficult to see Spinoza as being consciously and positively influenced by Aristotle, however. First, Spinoza's dialogue with his philosophical predecessors is, without exception, highly critical and polemical. He does not usually mention philosophers with whom he agrees (e.g. Crescas and Machiavelli). Secondly, several of Spinoza's explicit references to Aristotle are highly critical. Consider, for example, Spinoza's claim, in a letter to Hugo Boxel, that "the authority of Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates carries little weight with me" (Letter 56), or his mockery of the "delusions of the Aristotelians and Platonists" (Theological Political Treatise [TTP], Pref.; cf. ch. 13). Manzini suggests that in these passages Spinoza is not so much addressing Aristotle, but rather using him as a foil to target medieval Aristotelianism (13). Looking closely at the context, my impression is that he is right about the passages in the TTP, but not about the quote from Letter 56. More importantly, the claim that Spinoza uses Aristotle's name as a foil is a double-edged sword that may also serve to undermine Manzini's argument. Throughout the book, Manzini points out interesting and significant similarities between Spinoza's and Aristotle's texts, but to establish direct positive influence one must consider and rule out mediating agents. In the present case there is plenty of evidence that Spinoza read medieval Hebrew Aristotelians closely. Unfortunately, most of the Hebrew authors mentioned by Spinoza were never translated into modern European languages, and there are very few, if any, good studies of Spinoza's dialogue with these texts; in the absence of such translations and studies, some of Manzini's conclusions must remain tentative. Manzini's erudition and analysis of the text are impressive. For example, near the end of his celebrated Letter on the Infinite, Spinoza criticizes "recent Peripatetics" for misunderstanding the ancient method of proving God's existence, citing Crescas's correct formulation of the ancient proof. Manzini rightly points out that the proof Spinoza ascribes to the "recent Peripatetics" was in fact Aristotle's, while the alleged "ancient" proof (which allows for actual infinity and relies on Avicennian...

The Order Between Substance and Accidents in Aquinas’s thought

The Order Between Substance and Accidents in Aquinas’s Thought In this paper I examine Aquinas’s commentary on a text of Aristotle in which the type of order between substance and accidents is discussed. I claim that Aquinas maintains that there cannot be any reference to sensibility, despite any prima facie interpretation of Aristotle’s texts, according to which it could be thought that substance is temporally prior to accidents and, hence, that we must presuppose a perceivable change in the world on the basis of which it is possible to consider something temporally prior to something else. This interpretation – which is possible on the basis of Aristotle’s texts – would be a misinterpretation, according to Aquinas. Aquinas’s assumption is philosophically worthwhile because it confi rms that every metaphysical proposition must abstract from sensibility.

A COMÉDIA NA POÉTICA DE ARISTÓTELES

This paper tries to reconstruct what might have been Aristotle’s theory ofcomedy. Through the analysis of the actual text of the Poetics, along with some other textsof Aristotle, I draw conclusions regarding the nature of comedy and laughter in Aristotle’sthinking, and reflect upon subjects there implied, such as what would be the role played bykatharsis in comedy and the emotions proper to comedy.