[PDF] Unity Identity And Explanation In Aristotles Metaphysics eBook

Author : Theodore Scaltsas
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 396 pages
File Size : 19,96 MB
Release : 2001
Category : Metaphysics
ISBN : 9780199244416

GET BOOK

This volume presents fourteen new essays by leading figures in the fields of ancient philosophy and contemporary metaphysics, discussing Aristotle's theory of the unity of substances. This topic remains at the centre of metaphysical enquiry.The contributors examine the nature of essences, how they differ from other components of substance, and how they are related to these other components. The central questions discussed here are: What does Aristotle mean by 'potentiality' and 'actuality'? How do these concepts explicate matter andform, and how are they related to the actuality of substance? What is the role of matter and form in accounting for the unity, identity, and individuation of substances? These questions are crucial to an understanding of the unity of composite substances and their identity over time.The aim of the volume is both exegetical and philosophical: to address central issues in Aristotle's Metaphysics, and to stimulate further investigation of the problems and controversies that arise from these.

Author : Mary Louise Gill
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 15,91 MB
Release : 1989
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780691020709

GET BOOK

This book explores a fundamental tension in Aristotle's metaphysics: how can an entity such as a living organisma composite generated through the imposition of form on preexisting matterhave the conceptual unity that Aristotle demands of primary substances? Mary Louise Gill bases her treatment of the problem of unity, and of Aristotle's solution, on a fresh interpretation of the relation between matter and form. Challenging the traditional understanding of Aristotelian matter, she argues that material substances are subverted by matter and maintained by form that controls the matter to serve a positive end. The unity of material substances thus involves a dynamic relation between resistant materials and directive ends. Aristotle on Substance offers both a general account of matter, form, and substantial unity and a specific assessment of particular Aristotelian arguments. At every point, Gill engages Aristotle on his own philosophical ground through the detailed analysis of central, and often controversial, texts from the Metaphysics, Physics, On Generation and Corruption, De Anima, De Caelo, and the biological works. The result is a coherent, firmly grounded rethinking of Aristotle's central metaphysical concepts and of his struggle toward a fully consistent theory of material substances.

Author : Jeremy Kirby
Publisher : A&C Black
Page : 230 pages
File Size : 35,75 MB
Release : 2011-10-20
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1441101993

GET BOOK

Aristotle maintains that biological organisms are compounds of matter and form and that compounds that have the same form are individuated by their matter. According to Aristotle, an object that undergoes change is an object that undergoes a change in form, i.e. form is imposed upon something material in nature. Aristotle therefore identifies organisms according to their matter and essential forms, forms that are arguably essential to an object's existence. Jeremy Kirby addresses a difficulty in Aristotle's metaphysics, namely the possibility that two organisms of the same species might share the same matter. If they share the same form, as Aristotle seems to suggest, then they seem to share that which they cannot, their identity. By taking into account Aristotle's views on the soul, its relation to living matter, and his rejection of the possibility of resurrection, Kirby reconstructs an answer to this problem and shows how Aristotle relies on some of the central themes in his system in order to resist this unwelcome result that his metaphysics might suggest.

Author : Frank A. Lewis
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 341 pages
File Size : 19,55 MB
Release : 2013-06-27
Category : Literary Collections
ISBN : 0199664013

GET BOOK

Frank A. Lewis presents a close study of book Zeta of Aristotle's Metaphysics, one of his most dense and controversial texts, commonly understood to contain his deepest thoughts on the definition of substance and related metaphysical issues. Lewis argues that Aristotle returns to the causal view of primary substance from his Posterior Analytics.

Author : Giovanni Reale
Publisher : SUNY Press
Page : 552 pages
File Size : 40,95 MB
Release : 1980-01-01
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780873953856

GET BOOK

Reale's monumental work establishes the exact dimensions of Aristotle's concept of first philosophy and proves the profound unity of concept that exists in Aristotle's Metaphysics. Reale's opposition to the genetic interpretation of the Metaphysics is an updated return to a more traditional view of Aristotle's work, one which runs counter to nearly all contemporary scholarship. Reale argues that Aristotle's first philosophy includes a study of being, a study of substance, a study of divine substance, and a study of principles and causes, all of which are integrated and dialectically reconciled.

Author : Giovanni Reale
Publisher : State University of New York Press
Page : 552 pages
File Size : 46,29 MB
Release : 1980-06-30
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1438416970

GET BOOK

Reale's monumental work establishes the exact dimensions of Aristotle's concept of first philosophy and proves the profound unity of concept that exists in Aristotle's Metaphysics. Reale's opposition to the genetic interpretation of the Metaphysics is an updated return to a more traditional view of Aristotle's work, one which runs counter to nearly all contemporary scholarship. Reale argues that Aristotle's first philosophy includes a study of being, a study of substance, a study of divine substance, and a study of principles and causes, all of which are integrated and dialectically reconciled.

Author : Vasilis Politis
Publisher : Psychology Press
Page : 368 pages
File Size : 13,28 MB
Release : 2004
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780415251471

GET BOOK

This GuideBook looks at the Metaphysics thematically and takes the student through the main arguments found in the text. The book introduces and assesses Aristotle's life and the background to the Metaphysics, its ideas and text.

Author : Mariska Leunissen
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : pages
File Size : 11,49 MB
Release : 2010-08-26
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1139490419

GET BOOK

In Aristotle's teleological view of the world, natural things come to be and are present for the sake of some function or end (for example, wings are present in birds for the sake of flying). Whereas much of recent scholarship has focused on uncovering the (meta-)physical underpinnings of Aristotle's teleology and its contrasts with his notions of chance and necessity, this book examines Aristotle's use of the theory of natural teleology in producing explanations of natural phenomena. Close analyses of Aristotle's natural treatises and his Posterior Analytics show what methods are used for the discovery of functions or ends that figure in teleological explanations, how these explanations are structured, and how well they work in making sense of phenomena. The book will be valuable for all who are interested in Aristotle's natural science, his philosophy of science, and his biology.

Author : Gabriele Galluzzo
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 1402 pages
File Size : 47,40 MB
Release : 2012-11-09
Category : History
ISBN : 9004226680

GET BOOK

Focusing on the medieval reception of Book Zeta of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Volume One of this work offers an unprecedented and philosophically oriented study of medieval ontology against the background of the current metaphysical debate on the nature of material objects. Volume Two makes available to scholars one of the culminating points in the medieval reception of Aristotle’s metaphysical thought by presenting the first critical edition of Book VII of Paul of Venice’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics (1420-1424).”