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Articles 1 - 5 of 5
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Optimality And Teleology In Aristotle's Natural Science, Devin Henry
Optimality And Teleology In Aristotle's Natural Science, Devin Henry
Devin Henry
In this paper I examine the role of optimality reasoning in Aristotle’s natural science. By “optimality reasoning” I mean reasoning that appeals to some conception of “what is best” in order to explain why things are the way they are. We are first introduced to this pattern of reasoning in the famous passage at Phaedo 97b8-98a2, where (Plato’s) Socrates invokes “what is best” as a cause (aitia) of things in nature. This passage can be seen as the intellectual ancestor of Aristotle’s own principle, expressed by the famous dictum “nature does nothing in vain but always what is best for …
Aristotle On The Good Of Friendship: Why The Beneficiary Is Not What Matters, Kristina L. Biniek
Aristotle On The Good Of Friendship: Why The Beneficiary Is Not What Matters, Kristina L. Biniek
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
Scholars seeking to understand Aristotle’s view of friendship often characterize the relationship in terms of the beneficiary of the virtuous agent’s activity. I argue that this is a distortive lens through which to interpret Aristotle. Aristotle’s primary and fundamental concern, in his ethics, is to understand what the good is and how to bring it about, not to determine how to distribute goods produced by virtuous activity. Remembering this helps clarify the role of the friendship books and dissolves apparent tensions between Aristotle’s eudaimonism and his account of friendship. My first chapter establishes how consistently Aristotle holds to his task, …
Method And Metaphor In Aristotle's Science Of Nature, Sean Michael Pead Coughlin
Method And Metaphor In Aristotle's Science Of Nature, Sean Michael Pead Coughlin
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
This dissertation is a collection of essays exploring the role of metaphor in Aristotle’s scientific method. Aristotle often appeals to metaphors in his scientific practice; but in the Posterior Analytics, he suggests that their use is inimical to science. Why, then, does he use them in natural science? And what does his use of metaphor in science reveal about the nature of his scientific investigations? I approach these questions by investigating the epistemic status of metaphor in Aristotelian science. In the first essay, I defend an interpretation of metaphor as a type of heuristic reasoning: I claim that Aristotle …
The Roman Ethnozoological Tradition: Identifying Exotic Animals In Pliny's Natural History, Benjamin Moser
The Roman Ethnozoological Tradition: Identifying Exotic Animals In Pliny's Natural History, Benjamin Moser
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
Only recently has Pliny’s Natural History garnered favourable reception, as scholarship has expanded from Quellenforschung and the comparisons to modern biological understanding to a more balanced approach. Continuing with this perspective, I seek to appreciate both the Natural History on its own merit, free of modern scientific scrutiny, and Pliny as a participating author in the work beyond the previously stigmatized compiler or unknown perspective. I address the question of the Natural History’s position within the ancient zoological tradition, examining the Aristotelian influence on Pliny. I investigate three case studies: the haliaëtus and its (non-)genus; the relationship …
Aristotle On Code, John Thorp