Aristotle

Prezentul studiu oferă o traducere românească adnotată a tratatului Risala fi al-`aql, atribuit lui al-Kindi, însoțită de o analiză filosofică a principalelor concepte dezvoltate în text. Tratatul prezintă o clasificare a modurilor intelectului și formulează, într-o manieră concisă, distincția fundamentală dintre potență și act, care structurează teoria cunoașterii. -/- Studiul este organizat în mai multe etape. În prima parte este prezentat contextul istoric și intelectual al filosofiei arabe timpurii, în special în cadrul mișcării de traducere din Bagdad. În continuare sunt (...) discutate transmiterea textuală a tratatului și principiile adoptate în realizarea traducerii. Partea centrală o constituie traducerea românească a textului, însoțită de note explicative. -/- Analiza filosofică evidențiază caracterul sistematic al clasificării modurilor intelectului, rolul trecerii de la potență la act și importanța intelectului permanent în act ca principiu al actualizării. De asemenea, este analizată relația dintre intelect și inteligibil, înțeleasă ca o formă de identitate în act. -/- În ultima parte sunt examinate influențele tratatului asupra filosofiei islamice ulterioare, în special la al-Farabi, Avicenna și Averroes. Studiul arată că, deși concis, tratatul constituie un punct de plecare esențial pentru dezvoltarea ulterioară a teoriei intelectului în tradiția filosofică islamică. (shrink)

This book chapter discusses how and why the author was drawn to study Aristotle's philosophy, and focuses on nine key ideas one can draw from Aristotle's works that when properly understood and applied contribute to leading a fuller and better life.

This thesis examines the philosophical ideologies of three prominent late-Byzantine thinkers—Gemistos Plethon, George of Trebizond (Trapezuntios), and Bessarion—and evaluates which perspective offers the most compelling approach to the revival of Greek philosophy in the 15th century. It contextualizes their work within the intellectual and cultural milieu of late Byzantium, including the preservation of classical texts and the doctrinal negotiations of the Council of Florence. Pletho advocates for a Platonic revival, emphasizing metaphysical hierarchy, divine unity, and cosmology, while Trapezuntios defends Aristotle, (...) stressing logical rigor, empirical reasoning, and compatibility with Christian doctrine. Bessarion, trained in Neoplatonism, seeks to harmonize the two, arguing that Plato and Aristotle share fundamental principles and that their apparent opposition is largely a matter of misinterpretation. By analyzing their arguments, including formal logical reconstructions, the thesis concludes that Bessarion’s reconciliatory approach provides the most persuasive framework for integrating classical philosophy with Christian thought, demonstrating a balance between fidelity to tradition and intellectual synthesis. (shrink)

Prezentul studiu ofera o traducere romaneasca adnotata a unui tratat scurt atribuit lui al-Kindi, transmis in editia lui Muhammad Abd al-Hadi Abu Rida sub titlul al-qawl fi al-nafs al-mukhtasar min kitab Aristu wa Filatun wa sair al-falasifa. Textul prezinta o expunere concisa a doctrinei filosofilor despre natura sufletului, cunoasterea inteligibila si destinul spiritual al omului. -/- Articolul prezinta contextul istoric si intelectual al operei lui al-Kindi in cadrul miscarii de traducere din Bagdad, discuta traditia textuala a tratatului si principiile filologice (...) ale traducerii, iar in partea centrala ofera traducerea romaneasca a textului insotita de note explicative. -/- Analiza filosofica arata ca tratatul trebuie inteles ca o reflectie asupra naturii sufletului si asupra finalitatii vietii filosofice, in care elemente aristotelice sunt combinate cu motive platonice si neoplatonice caracteristice filosofiei arabe timpurii. (shrink)

The so-called Third Man argument in Plato’s Parmenides exposes a structural instability within the theory of Forms. If many particulars are F in virtue of a Form of F, and if the Form itself is F, then a further unifying principle appears required, generating an infinite regress. This paper offers a minimal formal reconstruction of the regress and argues that its source lies in a collapse of explanatory levels: the unifying principle is treated as belonging to the same ontological domain (...) as the plurality it explains. To clarify this structural difficulty, two mathematical models are developed. A stratified set-theoretic framework enforces level-sensitivity by typing participation across distinct domains. A topological model interprets Forms as limit-structures determined by patterns of convergence rather than as additional members of a plurality. Both models preserve the unifying function attributed to Forms while blocking the regress-generating step. The formal analysis is then situated within a comparative interpretation of Plato, Aristotle, and al-Kind¯ı. Plato’s dialectic exposes the instability of unregulated self-application; Aristotle resolves it by denying the separate ontological status of universals; al-Kind¯ı preserves explanatory hierarchy through disciplined abstraction. The paper advances a moderate structural claim: regress arises when explanatory structure is confused with membership. Clarifying this distinction illuminates a central tension in ancient metaphysics concerning unity and multiplicity. (shrink)

This brief offers a structured historical overview of the concept of aether as the “fifth element” within the development of ancient cosmology and its later transformations. Beginning with archaic mythological cosmologies and early Greek thought, it traces the emergence of aether as a distinct celestial substance associated with luminosity, purity, and incorruptibility. Particular attention is given to its systematic formulation in Aristotle’s De caelo, where the fifth body becomes the material principle of the supralunar realm, distinguished from the four sublunary (...) elements by its eternal circular motion. The study then follows the persistence and gradual transformation of the concept through medieval interpretations of the quinta essentia, Renaissance natural philosophy, early modern physics, and finally its restricted survival in modern chemical terminology. Rather than advancing a polemical thesis, this text is conceived as a pedagogical support document for students and researchers in ancient cosmology and classical Greek philosophy, offering a historically grounded synthesis of primary sources and key interpretative traditions. (shrink)

This teaching material explores ancient cosmological conceptions of the world by examining the figure of Atlas and the meaning of “world” (kosmos, ouranós) in Greek thought. Drawing on classical sources such as Plato’s Timaeus, Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, and Hesiod’s Theogony, it shows that in antiquity the world was not identified with the planet Earth, but with a unified and ordered cosmic structure, often represented as a celestial sphere. The material is presented here for greater visibility and (...) is also available in the Teaching Materials section, with the aim of providing an accessible framework for understanding the symbolic and conceptual foundations of ancient cosmology. (shrink)

This essay challenges the widespread assumption that fully developed, secular rationality originates exclusively in ancient Greece. While acknowledging Aristotle’s foundational role in the theoretical systematization of formal logic, it argues that other forms of rational, non-mythical thought existed long before the Greek tradition. Focusing on the Egyptian mathematical papyri of Rhind and Moscow (second millennium BCE), the study shows that these documents embody a structured, rule-governed, and transferable mode of reasoning based on explicit procedures, internal criteria of correctness, and abstract (...) geometric-mathematical operations. Although not articulated as logical theory, this operative rationality functions as a formal system in practice. Recognizing this challenges the myth–reason dichotomy and expands the historical threshold of human rationality beyond its traditional Greek framework. (shrink)

The essay provides a comprehensive historical and methodological framework (a « user’s manual » in short) for approaching Aristotle’s elusive treatise on Ideas – « not quite lost, not quite recovered ». Its starting point is the observation that Aristotle’s anti-Platonic remarks on Forms rank among the sharpest in the corpus, yet they confront the reader with a methodological paradox: on the one hand, his attacks are strikingly coherent and appear to presuppose a long and technically sophisticated debate; on the (...) other hand, precisely because Aristotle so often writes in a laconic, recapitulatory mode, the dossier remains frustratingly obscured by gaps in detail. The result is a familiar interpretive dilemma: either one treats the treatise as essentially unrecoverable and contents oneself with scattered allusions, or one attempts an ambitious reconstruction that risks conflating later paraphrase, doxography, or scholastic smoothing with Aristotle’s own text. The paper rejects this forced choice. It argues that the Peri Ideôn can be approached with genuine philological traction, provided one adopts a rigorous protocol that distinguishes types of evidence and assigns each an appropriate inferential weight. In short, the paper function less as a speculative reconstruction than as an operational guide to what can be reconstructed and to what must remain conjectural. The essay unfolds in three stages. First, it situates the Peri Ideôn within Aristotle’s broader metaphysical preoccupations with universality—what it is to say that something is one over many, and what kind of being (if any) such a universal enjoys. This framing matters because it allows the reader to see that Aristotle’s engagement with Platonic Forms is not an episodic quarrel, but a cluster of pressure-points where issues about science, definition, and predication come to the fore. Second, the paper reopens the textual and editorial dossier with special attention to the transmission-layer through which the treatise is known. Here its contribution is deliberately practical: it explains how the fragments traditionally assembled from Alexander of Aphrodisias’ commentary tradition can now be handled more finely by asking what we should count as a “fragment,” what we should count as a paraphrase, and where Alexander may already be interpreting rather than transmitting. Third, the essay tests this protocol on a set of canonical argumentative nodes – those places where Aristotle’s own writings gesture most clearly toward the treatise and where later readers most insistently return (most notably in connection with the « Third Man Argument », which serves as a case in point). In sum, the essay does not claim to offer a new grand reconstruction, but rather a disciplined way of reading a lost work through layered witnesses. By offering explicit rules of use (what to extract, what to bracket, what to treat as later mediation), the essay aims to make the Peri Ideôn usable again for historians of Platonism and Aristotelianism alike: usable as a map of argumentative options within the Academy, and usable as a key for interpreting the most compressed and allusive anti-Platonic passages of Aristotle’s surviving corpus. (shrink)

While there is little doubt that Aristotle had no sympathy for Plato’s Ideas, it is not always clear what his grievances with them were, and to what extent he did justice to the arguments Plato and other proponents of the Ideas put forward in favour of their existence. His criticism is usually both highly condensed and allusive. In fact, Aristotle seems to assume everywhere that his readers were remarkably familiar with the complexities of a debate that it would be difficult (...) to reconstruct solely on the basis of the traces it has left in his school writings. Hence the great interest of a quasi-canonical source – the Peri ideôn – in which Aristotle addresses the problems of knowing whether there are ideas, whether it is possible to prove that they exist, and whether or not such proofs are all of equal value or not. Yet from the earliest attempts at reconstruction to the most recent interpretations, Aristotle’s lost work on Plato’s Ideas remains an enigmatic text. In particular, we may wonder whether the language and content, as revealed by Alexander of Aphrodite in his commentary on the book Great Alpha of the Metaphysics, reflect the letter of the original or whether it has been reorganised or rearranged, or even reworked in ways and for purposes that were at the sole discretion of the commentator. The translation and the eight essays collected in this volume explore the fragments of the Peri ideôn precisely from the angle of this multi-term equation, each time taking into account the difficulties associated with the testimony of Alexander of Aphrodite, who used the Peri ideôn in order to explain an Aristotelian text other than the Peri ideôn itself. (shrink)

This chapter examines a range of ancient Greek and Roman views regarding hope, developing themes drawn from philosophical sources—including Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoic and Epicurean schools—and discussing approaches and applications in the narratives of Thucydides and in ancient Greek medicine. Selected references to Greek and Roman literature and cultural practices are also included. Together, these ancient sources reveal complex human attitudes about the future, and the chapter considers various criteria used to make judgments about the value of hope. Themes (...) include the relationships of hope to fear and courage, rationality and memory, emotion and pleasure, and human agency and well-being. Throughout, connections are made with current philosophical literature on hope, in the belief that familiarity with the variety and nuance of ancient attitudes can promote a deeper understanding of our own notions of hope. (shrink)

In response to Sean Kirkland’s recent book Heidegger and the Destruction of Aristotle (2023), this paper examines Kant’s role in Heidegger’s phenomenology. The overall goal of the paper is to distance Heidegger’s mature phenomenology from the Greeks and show how Heidegger’s engagement with Kant is indispensable for his overall project and destructive hermeneutic. By drawing Heidegger’s reading of Kant into relation with Destruktion, Zeitlichkeit, and Temporalität, this paper argues that Kant is the foremost historical reference point for Being and Time (...) and for the lineage from Destruktion to deconstruction. Kant alone offers Heidegger with a model for a groundlaying for metaphysics from the ground up, that is, from the co-primordiality of being and time. (shrink)

This fifth chapter of A Conscious History traces the axial emergence of the classical roots of Western civilization in Classical Athens to a deeper, recurring cultural dynamic. It posits a fundamental dialectic between two perennial modes of human consciousness and social organization: the Participatory-Ecological and the Instrumental-Hierarchical. This analysis begins in pre-Mycenaean Crete, archetypally framed as a civilization embodying a participatory-ecological consciousness - a world that is then contrasted with the subsequent Indo-European-derived adaptations toward a warrior-aristocracy, sky-god worshipping, and a (...) hierarchical cosmic order, effectively marginalizing the older, wilder ecological deities to the countryside and the margins. The chapter’s central, illuminating thesis is that this repressed participatory consciousness did not vanish but resurfaced in a transformative, culturally recursive form during the Athenian Golden Age. We argue that the near-simultaneous emergence of democracy and theater was not coincidental but causally and structurally linked. Through a careful synthesis of history, archetypal psychology, and political theory, the text demonstrates that the Great Dionysia served as the ritual arm of the nascent democratic polis. Theater in its ancient origins was clearly not mere entertainment, but ritual tribemaking - democracy in mask and garb - a civic technology of collective catharsis and meta-narrative that allowed a multicultural empire to forge a shared identity by publicly wrestling with irreconcilable polarities (justice/mercy, individual/state, mortality/heroism, etc.). Concurrently, the chapter investigates a parallel cognitive revolution: the adoption and modification of the Phoenician phonetic alphabet. This is analyzed not as a mere tool, but as a cognitive technology that fundamentally restructured thought, enabling the abstract, analytical reasoning necessary for Socratic inquiry and Platonic metaphysics. The alphabet created the conditions for a new literate consciousness, separating the knower from the known and fostering the deepening recursion that drove both the spiral of growing psycho-cultural interiority and an increasing divide of literate humankind from natural embodiment. The lineage of Socrates → Plato → Aristotle is presented as the epitome of this recursive deepening - a process where knowledge is not a static transmission but a dynamic co-becoming through direct mentorship and lived dialogical confrontation. This stands in stark contrast to the modern, impersonal knowledge systems of modern technical and academic institutions. Ultimately, this analysis provides a powerful lens for contemporary inquiry. It frames modern discontent - the crisis of meaning, procedural alienation, and the denial of subjective consciousness within a dominant mechanistic paradigm - as a new manifestation of an ancient dialectic. The search for authentic community, ecological integration, and epistemology that honors lived experience is revealed as the modern effort to re-inhabit the same participatory-ecological consciousness that Athens temporarily but brilliantly channeled through its agora, its theater, and its thinking philosophers. This understanding is essential for anyone seeking to grasp the roots of our current societal impasses and to imagine pathways beyond them. (shrink)

Abdulrahman Mohammed Babu (1924–1996) was one of the most significant African Marxist thinkers and political figures of the twentieth century. One of the key problems that confronted Babu was the claim that Marxism was a Western product, marked by the particular concerns of the West, and thus could not be applied elsewhere. In response, Babu argued that the materialist conception of history is not exclusive to the West. Babu claimed that Ibn Khaldun anticipated some of the elements of Marx’s thought.

I offer a novel interpretation concerning Heidegger’s appropriation of Aristotelian phronesis in terms of the shifting roles that arche plays in structuring the disclosive movements proper to Aristotelian and Heideggerian phronesis. Specifically, I show that an intriguing ambiguity present in how Aristotle understands arche, in the sense of its being both an originative source of and what grasps first principles, can be leveraged to explain changes in the mediating relation between nous and logos relevant to Heidegger’s appropriations of phronesis, which (...) I then employ to explain two additional features thereof: how it differs from Aristotelian phronesis and how it changes subtly from its more explicit manifestations in the Sophist to its more implicit presence in Being and Time. One significant ramification of this arche-reading of Heideggerian phronesis I also explore is how an understanding of phronetic disclosure in terms of arche can inform an understanding of the temporality of the disclosure of Dasein’s Being in Being and Time. (shrink)

John Picardi of Lichtenberg was a lecturer at the Dominican Studium in Cologne in the early 14th century. The result of his lectures were some Quaestiones, which were identified by Landgraff in 1922, and which attracted the interest of the Neo-Thomists in the first half of the 20th century, including Martin Grabmann. Renewed interest in Picardi’s work has emerged in recent years, and a print edition of the Quaestiones will soon be published. The present article collects and summarises the main (...) studies on Picardi, highlighting the main points raised by scholars, and proposes possible lines of research. The categorisation of Picardi as a ‘Thomist’ is based on his views on the relationship between being and essence, form and matter, will and intellect, as well as in consideration of his relationship with the other ‘German Dominicans’ from the ‘Cologne school’ in the 13th and early 14th centuries. -/- . (shrink)

In the early thirteenth century, the connection between the immutability of the truth of prophecy and the necessary character of the announced event, i.e. the modal aspect of the prophetic utterance, is discussed in the quaestiones de prophetia of Peter of Capua, Stephen Langton, William of Auxerre, Alexander of Hales, Philip the Chancellor, Albertus Magnus and, later, Thomas Aquinas. According to all the authors mentioned in the paper, the necessitarianism of the prophetatum (the object of prophecy) occurs only at the (...) logical-propositional level, i.e. in the form of the logical relation connecting the condition or antecedent and the consequent. The fact that prophecy is a sign of divine foreknowledge does not imply a causal capacity with respect to its content, which remains contingent in itself until it is realised, even if necessary per accidens, as a conditional fact. (shrink)

Alexander of Aphrodisias (2nd–3rd century CE), a key figure in Hellenic philosophy, influenced Arabic-speaking thinkers through two distinct interpretations: a Neoplatonized Aristotelianism and a faithful Peripatetic approach. In the treatise entitled Fī l-tadbīrāt al-falakiyya (On the Governments of the Celestial Spheres), he explores themes like good arrangement (al-sharḥ wa-l-niẓām), reason (naṭīq), and the rational soul (al-nafs al-nāṭiqa). These concepts frame the emanative process where the First Cause creates and governs the cosmos. Nature, embodying divine power, compensates for human imperfections with (...) the rational soul while maintaining cosmic harmony. This study highlights key passages, illustrating Alexander Arabus’ contribution to Arabic Aristotelianism. (shrink)

The volume aims to investigate one of the most layered and pivotal concepts in the philosophical tradition: reason, understood not only as an intellectual faculty but also as a historical force and organizing principle. The book stems from a shared intellectual project initiated at the conference held in Foggia in March 2023, later enriched by contributions developed within PRIN research programs, with the goal of expanding and deepening the inquiry into the theme. Adopting an interdisciplinary and intercultural lens, the volume (...) gathers essays that explore the concept of reason across different philosophical contexts: from classical Greek thought to Christian and Islamic medieval philosophy, from Cartesian and Kantian modernity to contemporary critiques, including lesser-studied fields such as alchemical practices. The collection highlights both the faith in rationality as a driver of human progress and its historical contradictions, epistemological ambiguities, and ethical-political limitations. A central focus lies on the tension between reason and history: on one hand, reason as a guiding force in human development; on the other, history as a testing ground for its validity, as well as a domain of crisis and transformation. This dialectic permeates the volume, offering a multifaceted and critical understanding of a concept that remains central to the human condition. (shrink)

This article presents a detailed reading of a passage about open water swimming in Book V of the Odyssey. It aims to elucidate some of the excellences or virtues so that open water swimming contributes to the enjoyment of amateur or loving sport (deporte amador) and to the swimmer’s integral well-being. In Aristotelian terms, the article argues that, in the case of Odysseus, these excellences include practical wisdom (phronesis), magnanimity (megalopsychia) and self-control (enkrateia), in the dual sense of temperance and (...) mastery. It also highlights other virtues such as courage, patience, adaptability to the environment, and piety in the sense of respect for nature. Finally, it discusses how these excellences are important not only for swimming well in open waters, but also for practicing loving sport (deporte amador) as part of the good life. (shrink)

This thesis aims to emancipate the ancient Greek question of artistic truth. First, I will demonstrate that the question of artistic truth is raised rather than answered by Plato. Second, I will show that this question is extended rather than solved by Aristotle’s attempt to answer it. Third, I claim that, partly as a consequence of this Aristotelian heritage, the question is currently absent in contemporary aesthetics, yet needed for contemporary art practices. Through my discussion of Plato and Aristotle, I (...) develop a conceptual framework that can help to employ, develop and compare various theories of artistic truth. In short, this conceptual framework encompasses a transcendental scheme of three truth conceptions (i.e. metaphysical truth, discursive correctness and aesthetic plausibility) of which each corresponds to a distinct metaphysical modality (i.e. necessity, reality and possibility) and a specific form of representation (i.e. preceding, succeeding and simultaneous with the represented). With this differentiated account of truth, I present a systematic metaphysical framework in which truth is not identical with correctness, thinking not with discursive thinking, and the intellectual value of art not with the knowledge it bears. With this, I aim to aid a more critical inquiry into the conditions and possibilities of non-discursive thought in general, and its value of truth in particular. (shrink)

The two giants of ancient Greek philosophy, Plato and Aristotle, have traditionally been contrasted as "idealism vs realism." This paper offers a deeper reinterpretation of this contrast. We hypothesize that the directions each philosopher aimed for were, in fact, reversed in the way they were eventually realized through the course of history. Plato, who was oriented towards a transcendentalist structure, surprisingly derived a discipline (i.e. quantum language) that is more useful than modern statistics. Aristotle's empiricism, on the other hand, developed (...) into the causal determinism of Newtonian mechanics. Who would have expected the former to grow into an earthly discipline and the latter into a heavenly one? Who is greater, Plato or Aristotle? (shrink)

Yong Huang presents criticisms of Neo-Aristotelian meta-ethical naturalism and argues Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucian approach is superior in defending moral realism. After presenting Huang’s criticisms of the Aristotelian metaethical naturalist picture, such as that of Rosalind Hursthouse, I argue that Huang’s own views succumb to the same criticisms. His metaethics does not avoid an allegedly problematic ‘gap,’ whether ontological or conceptual, between possessing a human nature and exemplifying moral goodness. This ontological gap exists in virtue of the fact that it is (...) possible for there to be bad people, and the conceptual gap exists in virtue of the fact that people are not ‘good’ (in that sense of being a good agent) merely because they are human. Aristotelians and Confucians both should reject that such gaps are problematic. I conclude by proposing that Huang is better understood as criticizing the Aristotelian move from scientific-empirical facts about human nature to the objective prescriptivity of moral norms. But so too I argue that Confucians should not follow Huang here either. There is good scientific evidence that would be supportive of a Confucian analysis of social virtues and provide one way of responding to those worries about the scientific-empirical accessibility of facts about the good life. (shrink)

Brentano’s dissertation "Von der mannigfachen Bedeutung des Seienden nach Aristoteles" (On the Several Senses of Being in Aristotle) (1862) is examined in the light of the nineteenth-century debate on the Aristotelian categories. After providing an exposition of the conceptions of the main representatives of this debate, Adolf Trendelenburg and Hermann Bonitz, this paper assesses Brentano’s point of view on the meaning and origin of the Aristotelian categories. It shows (i) that Brentano assumes non-Aristotelian elements in his reading of the Aristotelian (...) categories, (ii) that this depends on the fact that he shares Bonitz’s thesis, and (iii) that his reading is incomplete in the light of certain Aristotelian statements about non-being. (shrink)

Aristotle's Organon in Old and New Logic 1800–1950 explores the reception and interpretation of Aristotle's logic over the last two centuries. The volume covers seminal works during this period by logicians, historians of logic, and historians of philosophy, including John Lloyd Akrill, Francesco Barone, Günther Patzig, Enrico Berti, and Mario Mignucci. Contributors consider the reception of the Organon in old logic and chart the appearance of formal approaches to logic beginning with Boole. This in-depth study of Aristotelianism also covers logic (...) in Kant and Hegel, alongside the problems and projects of interpreting Aristotle in the new logic after Boole and Frege. The background of modern debates concerning induction and abduction provides further insight into Aristotelian logic during the period. By filling gaps in our understanding of Aristotelian logic, this book provides a fundamental missing link in 21st century studies of the history of Aristotelianism. It brings together scholars of both ancient and modern logic to understand the interpretation of ancient logic before and after the development of the modern, algebraic approach to logic. (shrink)

In this paper, I shall discuss the question whether a concrete object can be multi-located while it is moving or not. I shall say nothing on the vexed issue of multi-location in and for itself. Instead, my discussion will support a ‘might’-conditional claim: ‘if multi-location were possible, then change might imply multi-location’. To do this, after a very short clarification of the various meanings of ‘to be located’, I will first present and discuss Diodorus’ arguments against the reality of motion, (...) since they focus on the question of what the location of the moving item is, and then scrutinize Hegel’s reply to Diodorus Cronus’ reasonings, insofar as his answer consists in claiming that an object in motion is in many locations at once. Although many philosophers of the past are referred to, this paper does not aim to be a piece of scholarship, but to explore the various metaphysical possibilities concerning the logic of location underlying change. (shrink)

El siguiente artículo desarrolla una interrogación filosófica sobre lo político a partir de una problematización arqueológica que permite precisar su carácter histórico y discursivo. El emplazamiento de esta pregunta, muestra la constitución y despliegue de lo político en torno a tres arcanos que entrelazan una definición antropológica de la vida (bíos), una modulación técnica (tekné) que prescribe su carácter oikonómico, y un conjunto de relaciones de fuerzas adversariales que definen su procedencia belicosa (stásis). El artículo finaliza con una serie de (...) contrapuntos que permiten poner en perspectiva esta arqueología frente a la crisis y extenuación contemporánea de la política, al haber intensificado su sentido antropológico como voluntad de poder sobre la existencia planetaria. (shrink)

This paper discusses an anonymous manuscript Dissertatio against Descartes’s and Gassendi’s theories of knowledge, dating from the first half of the eighteenth century and now preserved in the Biblioteca Forteguerriana in Pistoia. It is probably the result of Jesuit pedagogy, stemming from the lectures in which Aristotle’s works were commented on, drawing heavily on the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas.

Alexander of Aphrodisias reports a series of arguments from Aristotle’s Περὶ τἀγαθοῦ purportedly deployed by Plato to defend his doctrine of principles. One of these arguments, the so-called “categorial reduction argument”, underpins the postulation of the two first principles, the One and the Great and Small, through a bipartition of all beings into two categories, labeled ‘in themselves’ and ‘opposites’. I scrutinize this argument and compare it with other Early Academic bicategorial divisions and especially with the tripartite categorial distinction, itself (...) apparently based on material of Early Academic provenance, included in Sextus Empiricus’ Adversus Physicos 2.262-275. I argue that the Περὶ τἀγαθοῦ account of the “categorial reduction argument” leaves open certain philosophical problems, and Sextus’ report is best interpreted, rather than as a more detailed version of that account (as a common view would have it), as an alternative formulation of it that incorporates a philosophical attempt to disentangle those problems. (shrink)

The Electi Model articulates a comprehensive philosophical and institutional framework for post-democratic governance, conceived as a response to the structural inadequacies of contemporary political systems under conditions of accelerating technological, ecological, and civilizational complexity. Drawing upon Aristotelian virtue ethics, Platonic political philosophy, and comparative historical analysis, the treatise advances Electism: a constitutionally constrained, merit-based architecture of governance in which authority is vested in individuals selected for demonstrable intellectual capacity, moral refinement, empathy, temperance, and long-range foresight, rather than electoral popularity, factionalism, (...) or inherited power. -/- The work integrates political theory, moral philosophy, bioethics, genetics, education theory, economics, ecology, constitutional law, artificial intelligence alignment, historical governance analysis, and systems-level civilizational design into a single, internally coherent framework. Through sustained examination of historical political failure and continuity, it identifies recurrent vulnerabilities arising from short-termism, cognitive bias, institutional stagnation, and deficient anticipatory capacity—particularly in relation to artificial superintelligence, climate volatility, demographic pressure, and resource instability. In response, the model proposes ethically bounded mechanisms for leadership formation, individualized education, humane justice, centralized yet accountable economic redistribution, AI containment and oversight, constitutional self-correction, long-term knowledge preservation, and civilizational redundancy. -/- Rejecting both authoritarian domination and mass mediocrity, The Electi Model maintains that intelligence without virtue is corrupting, while virtue without competence and foresight is insufficient for civilizational endurance. It ultimately argues that durable human flourishing requires governance systems oriented toward centuries-scale stability, ethical continuity, and anticipatory foresight, rather than short-term political cycles or ideological expediency. -/- Keywords: political philosophy; philosophy of governance; post-democracy; meritocracy; virtue ethics; constitutional theory; moral psychology; philosophy of technology; artificial intelligence ethics; AI alignment; bioethics; human enhancement; philosophy of education; distributive justice; ecological ethics; long-termism; civilizational risk; historical political theory; institutional design; foresight and governance . (shrink)

Nella «Metafisica» Aristotele fonda una scienza filosofica a cui assegna il compito di occuparsi dell’«essere in quanto essere», indagandone le cause e i principi primi. Egli denomina questa scienza «filosofia prima» e la eleva a forma massima di sapere. La filosofia prima è abitualmente riconosciuta come il punto di partenza per la formazione della disciplina filosofica che, a partire dalla prima età moderna, chiamiamo ontologia. Nel delinearne la fisionomia teorica e lo statuto, tuttavia, Aristotele si confronta da vicino con un (...) altro autorevole modello di scienza suprema, avente anch’essa l’essere per oggetto proprio: la dialettica platonica. Scopo di questo libro è esplorare il retroterra platonico della progettazione aristotelica della filosofia prima e mostrare, attraverso dettagliate ricostruzioni testuali, che Aristotele ha elaborato questa scienza come un’alternativa alla dialettica platonica. (shrink)

Aristotle’s dialogue Protrepticus is not only his earliest work of ethics but also the root of all his subsequent investigations into ethics. Here we explore the various ways Aristotle retained in memory the contents of the Protrepticus and redeployed them in the Eudemian Ethics, including the common books. Since Aristotle himself does not explicitly acknowledge the foundational significance of the Protrepticus to his later works, our exploration must proceed on the basis of our knowledge of the earlier work, which can (...) then related to comparable passages in the treatises. But the Protrepticus is a lost work, unlike the EE and the EN, in the sense that no medieval manuscripts of it have survived. And so it first needs to be reconstructed on the basis of the streams of reception that deposited information in surviving works by later ancient authors. We begin in part 1 by reviewing the surviving evidence of the Protrepticus before presenting our wider reconstruction and conception of the work as a dialogue in part 2. In part 3, we discuss ideas and arguments in the reconstructed dialogue that are retained and redeployed in the Eudemian Ethics, focussing on the account of intellectual virtues in EE v and the introduction and methodological framework in EE i-ii.1. (shrink)

In the Symposium, Plato has Socrates claim that the priestess Diotima once claimed that Eros is a lover of wisdom or someone who is “in between wisdom and ignorance. In fact, you see, none of the gods loves wisdom or wants to become wise—for they are wise—and no one else who is wise loves wisdom.” Perhaps the best starting point for understanding the philosophy of Aristotle is that in principle, he rejects Diotima’s etymological wordplay that claims that philosophy implies an (...) absence of wisdom. At the heart of Aristotle’s philosophy is the claim not only that all humans desire to know, but also that human animals (and indeed some non-human animals) are capable of understanding the world and its contents in a broad array of epistemic capacities, including veridical perception, artisanal expertise, theoretical science, practical wisdom, and, indeed, even σοφία itself of the highest objects of cognition, namely the nature of the gods (Metaph. 1.1.980a22–981b7). My chapter explores the philosophy of Aristotle in five different parts. Part I examines the “organon” or linguistic and logical tool-kit that analyzes human reasoning from the most basic components of a proposition up through syllogistic presentation of the causes that explain what research has uncovered. Parts II and III of the chapter explore the main contours of Aristotle’s “theoretical sciences”—what today we call natural science, metaphysics, and theology. Part IV of the chapter examines what the Nicomachean Ethics calls “the philosophy of human things,” namely the study of ethics and politics. Finally, Part V looks at how Aristotle and his school systemized two different fields of human study, namely that of artistic mimesis or the art of poetry, and deliberative, judicial, and epidictic oratory or the art of rhetoric. (shrink)

The present paper has two objectives. First, it explicates the story, initially portrayed by Eckart Förster (2012), that allegedly philosophy started with publishing of Kant’s CPR and ended a quarter century later when Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind appeared. We address the questions in what sense this happened and how is this development to be interpreted? Secondly, we demonstrate that similar radical transition from new, “true” beginning of philosophy to its apparent finishing took place in two other, high profile occasions in (...) the history of Western philosophy, in two key points of its development: in the years 390–365 BC, between the early and the late Plato, and between 1898 and 1922, between Russell and Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. These three short-lived, spectacular transitions from philosophy’s alleged start to its alleged ultimate accomplishment give us good reason to speak about a specific 25-years principle in philosophy. In a peculiar way, this principle reveals philosophy’s true nature. (shrink)

This article proposes a metaethical route from neo-Aristotelian naturalism, as developed in particular by Philippa Foot, to virtue-ethical longtermism. It argues that the metaethical assumptions of neo-Aristotelian naturalism inherently imply that a valid description of the life-form of a species must satisfy a formal requirement of internal sustainability. The elements of a valid life-form description then serve as a normative standard. Given that humans have the ability to influence the fate of future generations and know about their influence, this article (...) posits that our future as a species becomes a part of the description of the human life-form. Consequently, in our case, the sustainability requirement is extended into the future, leading to a minimal and humanist version of longtermism. As in Rosalind Hursthouse’s naturalistic virtue ethics, the focus of the proposed virtue-ethical longtermism remains on developing virtues as the only reliable way for the agent to achieve the good life. However, since what can count as virtue must be compatible with a life-form description that, taken as a whole, facilitates the long-term survival of our species, this position still implies a genuine longtermism, although it contrasts with the quantifying and maximizing logic of consequentialism. (shrink)

Biology, or life science, has particularly marked the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as a discipline. Due to its focus on the study of living entities, it distinguishes itself from other natural sciences in terms of subject matter, methods, and scope. The importance of biology is likely to continue growing in the coming years and centuries, leading to an increased interest in the history and philosophy of biology. Consequently, there is a need to illuminate methods that shed light on the history (...) and philosophy of biology. Drawing inspiration from Aristotle’s perspective on knowledge, this study proposes three distinct viewpoints in the history of biology. These perspectives are named the Nonteleological- Contingent View, Nominalistic-Terminologistic View, and Contentual-Contextual View. Accordingly, the roots of biology can be traced back to Aristotle. It is argued that biology can be considered a science initiated by Aristotle, and the extent of Aristotle’s contributions to the field of biology is indicated with references to the page count of his works in this domain. Furthermore, attention is drawn to the intellectual continuity between Aristotle and Ibn Sina (Avicenna), emphasizing Ibn Sina’s role as a scholar who produced original works through updates and syntheses. (shrink)

In this book, Julie K. Ward examines the concept of theoria within both philosophical and what she terms ‘traditional’ frameworks. Her primary objective is to enhance the ongoing philosophical discussion surrounding Plato and Aristotle’s accounts of theoria by situating them within the context of the earlier practice of traditional theoria. By understanding the cultural ground from which these philosophical accounts spring, Ward rightly asserts that her work enables a deeper and more sustained critical analysis of both philosophers’ theories than what (...) is found in current scholarship. (shrink)

Reflections and projections upon the history of ontology and its meaning for the future of philosophy.

We develop some of Williamson’s ideas regarding how propositional calculus aids in comprehending Aristotelian logic. Specifically, we enhance the utilisation of truth tables to examine the structure of opposition diagrams. Using ‘conditioned truth tables’, we establish logical dependency relationships between the truth values of different propositions. This approach proves effective in interpreting various texts of the Organon concerning the doctrine of opposition.

Nicomachean Ethics/NE, Book III, Chapters 1-5, provides Aristotle’s account of “Voluntary Movement.” It, thus, draws the Passion-Action distinction, only posited earlier in Categories, while also serving as the linchpin of NE’s discussion of Virtue, in explicitly connecting it to Right Reason. My explication of this text renders its terminology consistent with the Law of Excluded Middle and rebuts two criticisms of the Eudaimonistic Axiology on which it is based. These results are shown to be entailments of Aristotle’s doctrine that Voluntary (...) is (a) Relative. That categorization is then used to help treat a problematic case of Deliberation beyond his purview. (shrink)

Drawing on Anscombe, in this essay I argue that we should not take Aristotle to be a moral philosopher, nor a virtue ethicist. This is because contemporary virtue ethics has little to do with Aristotelian ethics. While contemporary virtue ethics (or aretaic moral theory, as one may call it) operates on the level of moral and thus categorical norms, Aristotelian ethics—an aretaic life ethics—is primarily concerned with pragmatic norms. The main question for Aristotle is what a good general conduct of (...) life is. The major concern of aretaic moral theory, on the other hand, is to provide a criterion of morally right action and hence to define the concepts of the morally right, the impermissible and moral duty in aretaic terms. This shows that contemporary authors assume a primacy of virtue, while Aristotle assumes a primacy of eudaimonia. I illustrate this distinction by addressing the question of how the virtues benefit their possessor. (shrink)

Both before and after the publication of Isaac Newton’s particulate theory of light, numerous wave theories of light were advanced by both philosophers and scientists (e.g., René Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, Robert Hooke, Francesco Grimaldi, and Christiaan Huygens). What is peculiar about this list, as frequently found in the scholarly literature on light, is that it refers to individuals who do not extend much further back than the seventeenth century. A close examination of Aristotle’s account of color and light in comparison (...) to Christiann Huygens’ theory of color and light, however, reveals that Aristotle deserves to be recognized as one who antedates and foreshadows these modern wave theorists. Indeed, we shall argue that Aristotle offered the first wave theory of color and light. On Aristotle’s theory, light is the actualization of a transparent medium such as air or water that makes possible the dissemination of color through the medium in a manner analogous to the dissemination of sound through air or water. (shrink)

The author Jacob Roman (Parr) provides commentary and line by line analysis of 218b10 through 223a23 , which is of Aristotle's Physica . -/- written in 2023 .