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Nous As The Ground Of Aristotle's Metaphysics?, John J. Cleary

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

This paper explores the implications of Aristotle's puzzling suggestions that the possibility of first philosophy somehow depends on whether part of the soul is separable from material body. My Conjecture1 is that for Aristotle the science of metaphysics depends on a special activity of nous that grasps die self-identical essences which are objects of first philosophy, as distinct from physics and mathematics. From Aristotle's perspective, of course, it is the existence of such essences that makes metaphysics possible, but it is arguable that without a corresponding mode of cognition this would not be a human science. It is a moot …

Deception In Aristotle's Rhetoric: How To Tell The Rhetorician From The Sophist, And Which One To Bet On, Eugene Garver

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Aristotle has a simple answer to questions about the morality of rhetoric: he distinguishes the rhetorician and the sophist. What sets the sophist apart from the rhetorician is "not the faculty (dynamis) but the moral purpose (prohairesis)" (I1.1355M7; see de Soph Elen 1.165a30). Keep straight the difference between sophist and rhetorician and all moral problems will evaporate. He certainly doesn't think telling them apart needs great philosophical development or exquisite ethical judgment. Distinguishing them requires neither phronesis nor familiarity with the Rhetoric. He gives his distinction all the explanation he thinks it needs by saying:

In rhetoric, the person who …

Sagp Newsletter 1993/4.2 (November), Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Programs of the Society with the Eastern Division and with the American Philological Association, December 1933.

Aristotle On The Principles Of Perceptible Body (Gen. Corr. 2.1-3), David E. Hahm

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

With his clarification of the philosophical significance of the Pre- Socratic theories of elements Aristotle completes his discussion of the principles of perceptible bodies. He had embarked on this subject with the intent of explaining the first bodies and their role as principles of genesis and destruction. Jumping off from the theories of the Ionian philosophers who first proposed simple elemental bodies as principles of change, he probed behind these to discover even more fundamental principles, one of which was anticipated by another Ionian and by his teacher Plato. These ultimate principles will become for Aristotle the foundation of all …

Sagp Newsletter 1993/4.4 (March), Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Announcement of the SAGP panel at the Central Division in Kansas City, May 1994.

Sagp Newsletter 1993/4.3 (February), Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Program of the Society with the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association March/April 1994.