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What Does Aristotle's Prime Mover Do?, Sarah Waterlow Broadie

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

The Prime Mover of Metaphysics Lambda is the source, above all, of eternal motion in the first sphere. It may seem silly to ask 'What (according to Lambda) does the Prime Mover do?' The answer is obvious: 'He — or it — gives rise to the motion of the first sphere'. But according to a widely accepted interpretation, this is not what the Prime Mover does first and foremost; instead, the Mover essentially contemplates. This contemplative conception is my target here. I shall adduce reasons for suspecting that the contemplative Prime Mover is not an Aristotelian postulate in Lambda, but …

Being According To Aristotle's Metaphysics Delta, Richard Bodeus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

In ordinary language, what is said 'being' is so-called in several different ways. In his attempt to clarify this important point, Aristotle introduces distinctions that are not as easily grasped as one might at first believe. Commentators are particular troubled by what 'being per se' means, especially in relation to the 'categories'. Some of them are also surprised to see that Aristotle leaves no room for what one might call 'existential being.' And other aspects of Aristotle's account raise additional problems. I hope to contribute to a more successful understanding of Aristotle's general aim in this text.

Sex & Mysticism In Plato, John Thorp

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

It is a commonplace that Plato seems to entertain two rather different pictures of our access to knowledge of the forms. On the one hand there is anamnesis, remembering a knowledge that we had before our incarnation and that we have since forgotten – thus the Phaedo and the Meno. On the other, there is something that looks far more like abstractive generalization from sensible particulars – the Symposium is the best example, though there are elements of it also in the Republic and the Sophist. This paper argues that there is also a third epistemological model at work, …

The Parts Of Definitions, Unity, And Sameness In Aristotle's Metaphysics, Mark R. Wheeler

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

First principles (ἀρχάι) are crucial to Aristotle's conception of scientific knowledge (επιστήμη). In the Posterior Analytics, Aristotle teaches us that all scientific knowledge is either knowledge arrived at through demonstration from first principles or knowledge of the first principles themselves. The first principles of a given science are the primary premises (τὰ πρώτα) of that science (Pst. An., 72a7); they express the essential characteristics of the substance about which the given science is concerned; and all other scientific knowledge is derived from the first principles through syllogistic inference.

The first principles of the various sciences are expressed through definition (ὁρισμός). …

Sagp Newsletter 1994-95.1 November, Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Announcement of the SAGP panels with the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association December 28, 1994, and with the American Philological Association, December 30, 1994.

Sagp Ssips 1994 Addendum, Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Addendum to the SAGP SSIPS Program October 1994

Change And Contrariety: Problems Plato Set For Aristotle, Charles Young, James Bogen

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Plato's views on change and contrariety arise from concerns about definition and explanation in the aporetic Socratic dialogues that find more systematic analysis and resolution in the more constructive dialogues that follow. After developing these concerns, analyses, and solutions, we sketch Aristotle's quite different treatment of the same and other related issues.

Aristotle On Good And Bad Actualities, Owen Goldin

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

This paper is a discussion of one of the more neglected passages in the central books of Aristotle's Metaphysics, Θ 9 105la4~19. In this passage Aristotle makes some assertions concerning relations that hold among potentialities and actualities, both good and bad. These assertions seem to be made as an afterthought, and their relation to the analysis of potentiality and actuality that precedes is unclear. I shall argue that in this passage Aristotle is in effect providing a metaphysical foundation for the normative component of a teleological analysis of composite substance. I consider certain difficulties in reconciling the text with the …

Intentionality And Isomorphism In Aristotle, Christopher Shields

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

In this paper I investigate one central source of Aristotle's dissatisfaction with a comprehensive analogy between aisthêsis and noêsis. I will argue that his conception of nous as organless is neither empirically motivated nor obviously misguided. On the contrary, Aristotle's insistence that nous is separate and unmixed with the body is grounded in an approach to intentionality nascent in his treatment of noêsis. This approach to intentionality helps motivate the special status he awards nous.