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1
Burns, Tony. "Materialism in Ancient Greek Philosophy and in the Writings of the Young Marx." Historical Materialism 7, no. 1 (2000): 3–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156920600100414623.
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AbstractWhat is the young Marx's attitude towards questions of psychology? More precisely, what is his attitude towards the human mind and its relationship to the body? To deal adequately with this issue requires a consideration of the relationship between Marx and Feuerbach. It also requires some discussion of the thought of Aristotle. For the views of Feuerbach and the young Marx are (in some respects) not at all original. Rather, they represent a continuation of a long tradition which derives ultimately from ancient Greek philosophy, and especially from the philosophy of Aristotle. As is well known, Aristotle's thought with respect to questions of psychology are mostly presented, by way of a critique of the doctrines of the other philosophers of his day, in his De Anima. W.H. Walsh has made the perceptive observation that Aristotle's views might be seen as an attempt to develop a third approach which avoids the pitfalls usually associated with the idealism of Plato, on the one hand, and the materialism of Democritus on the other. It might be argued that there is an analogy between the situation in which Aristotle found himself in relation to the idealists and materialists of his own day and that which confronted Marx in the very early 1840s. For, like Aristotle, Marx also might be seen as attempting to develop such a third approach. The difference is simply that, in the case of Marx, the idealism in question is that of Hegel rather than that of Plato, and the materialism is the ‘mechanical materialism’ of the eighteenth century rather than that of Democritus. This obvious parallel might well explain why Marx took such a great interest in Aristotle's De Anima both during and shortly after doing the preparatory work for his doctoral dissertation – the subject matter of which, of course, is precisely the materialist philosophy of the ancient Greek atomists Democritus and Epicurus.
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Falcon, Andrea. "The Pre-History of the Commentary Tradition : Aristotelianism in the First Century bce." Dossier 64, no. 1 (July 31, 2008): 7–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.7202/018532ar.
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Abstract In the first century bce Aristotle was subject to an intense textual study. This study eventually led to the appropriation of the conceptual apparatus developed in his writings. In the case of Xenarchus, the relevant apparatus was Aristotle’s theory of motion, with an emphasis on the concepts of natural place and natural motion. Xenarchus reworked Aristotle’s theory of motion so as to make the celestial simple body expendable. While I do not deny that some of his views are best understood in light of the debates of late Hellenestic philosophy, I contend that his textual engagement presupposes the distance from Aristotle that is characteristic of Post-Hellenistic philosophy.
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Müller, Jörn. "Aristoteles und der naturalistische Fehlschluß." Bochumer Philosophisches Jahrbuch für Antike und Mittelalter 11 (December 31, 2006): 25–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/bpjam.11.04mul.
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Is Aristotle’s ethics founded on a naturalistic fallacy? This article examines in detail the criticism which was levelled at Aristotle by George Edward Moore in his Principia Ethica in 1903. In order to check the correctness of this assumption, Aristotle’s notion of goodness is reconstructed by an analysis of his theoretical as well as his ethical writings. The picture which emerges shows that Aristotle does not understand goodness as a univocal term but as an analogical concept the focal meaning of which is closely related to the perfection of the different natural things or species. Since Moore’s criticism presupposes a univocal definition of goodness, Aristotle’s treatment of this notion does not fall prey to it. Although his understanding of goodness is connected with his teleology of nature, Aristotle is not guilty of deriving ›ought‹ from ›is‹; therefore, his ethics is also immune to the second argument against the naturalistic fallacy which is usually traced back to David Hume.
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Jaworska-Wołoszyn, Magdalena. "Aristotle’s Lost Symposium and On Drunkenness. The Content of The Extant Testimonies and Excerpts." Peitho. Examina Antiqua 7, no. 1 (March 17, 2016): 205–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.14746/pea.2016.1.10.
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Ancient catalogues of Aristotle’s writings (Diogenes Laertius, Hesychius) mention Symposium in one book, but this does not seem to be a dialogue analogical to that of Plato. Aristotle raised the sympotical and wine-drinking issues differently, as Plutarchus, Macrobius, Philo of Alexandria, Ps. Julian, and first and foremost, Atheaneus relate in their works. In his The Sophists at Dinner, Atheaneus quotes Aristotle’s title Συμπόσιον only once, while the title Περὶ μέθης is cited six times. Some scholars and editors of Aristotle’s fragments combine both titles as belonging to one writing (Laurenti, Zanatta), while others (Gigon, Breitenberger) separate them as their identity is not confirmed by the sources. Irrespective of whether it was a dialogue, just one or two related works, the few extant testimonies and citations from Aristotle provide an interesting source of information concerning the then customs and drinking effects in Greek culture, which, however, should not be directly associated with contemporary drunkenness and alcoholism. Aristotle’s approach to wine-drinking and feasting was in fact investigative, natural, medical, and analogical to the arguments presented in the third book of Problemata, where the matters On the drinking of wine and drunkenness are touched upon.
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Brancacci, Aldo. "Aristotele e Diogene il Cinico." Peitho. Examina Antiqua 11, no. 1 (December 23, 2020): 67–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.14746/pea.2020.1.3.
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In this paper I examine the testimonium of Aristotle’s Rhetoric concerning Diogenes the Cynic (SSR V B 184). This piece of evidence is the most ancient source of Diogenes and proves that Aristotle was familiar with his writings. I also study the testimonium on Diogenes that is handed down by Theophrastus (SSR V B 172), which confirms the interest of the ancient Peripatos in this philosopher. Finally, I examine a passage of Book 1 of the Politics where Aristotle refers to the thesis on the abolition of money. I argue that such a thesis could be ascribed to Diogenes. In particular, I attempt to demonstrate that several theses of political philosophy put forward by Diogenes should be considered as constituting a polemical overthrow of the corresponding theses of Aristotle in Book 1 of his Politics.
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Classen, C. Joachim. "Aristotle. His Writings and Influence. Vol II." Philosophy and History 22, no. 2 (1989): 166–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/philhist198922290.
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Adluri, Vishwa. "Heidegger’s Encounter with Aristotle." Heidegger Circle Proceedings 44 (2010): 89–108. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/heideggercircle2010445.
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This paper examines Heidegger’s concept of facticity in his writings from the 1920s. The sudden ‘discovery’ of facticity in these writings and Heidegger’s subsequent engagement with Aristotle are related to a decision to rethink existence in terms of Luther’s and Paul’s interpretation of early Christianity. Central to this interpretation is the experience of the καιρός and the awaiting of the παρουσία. Heidegger argues that this primordial Christian experience (urchristliche Erfahrung) constitutes a fundamental experience (Grunderfahrung) of factical life and undertakes a destruction of Scholastic theology and the ancient and especially, Aristotelian, ontology upon which it is based.3 Heidegger’s philosophical project thus centers in the recovery of this fundamental experience of facticity through a destructive appropriation of the tradition. In this paper, I argue that one of Heidegger’s key strategies in turning to Aristotle is to exclude cyclical temporality - whether thought of as transmigration of the soul (Plato) or as eternal recurrence (Nietzsche) – which is incompatible with this Christian experience.
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Fain, Lucas. "The Presuppositions of Being and Time." Heidegger Circle Proceedings 53 (2019): 235–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/heideggercircle20195319.
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It is often remarked that Heidegger’s Being and Time was originally proposed as a book on Aristotle, and that formative work for this initial expression of Heidegger’s existential ontology was developed through the early 1920s in a series of lecture courses and seminars on Aristotle’s practical philosophy. This paper examines select details from Heidegger’s 1924 summer course in order to question the presuppositions of Heidegger’s decision to found the project of fundamental ontology on a purely philological reading of Aristotle. At stake is the method of investigation which permitted Heidegger to think politics through ontology in his most controversial writings from the 1930s—and ultimately the meaning of philosophy itself.
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Mayer, Martin F. "Aristotelische Biologie. Eine Synopsis." Peitho. Examina Antiqua 11, no. 1 (December 23, 2020): 83–120. http://dx.doi.org/10.14746/pea.2020.1.4.
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In no field of knowledge did Aristotle leave more writings than in biology. He conducted research for longer and more intensively in zoology than in any other field. In these writings he mentions a good 550 animal and 60 plant species. While this includes the internal anatomy of around 110 animals, he dissected 60 species himself. The present contribution deals with the epistemic motifs and the meaning of Aristotelian biology in the context of his scientific curriculum. It is thus demonstrated that in De anima Aristotle’s actual explanations are preceded by an investigation of the principles, which aims to differentiate living objects from inanimate ones, and to develop a method of explanation based on the species-specific vital functions of living beings. This article provides an overview of the four main disciplines of Aristotelian biology: comparative anatomy, physiology, genetics and behavioral research. The text offers tabular overviews of the animals and plants dealt with by Aristotle.
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STREETMAN, W. CRAIG. "‘‘IF IT WERE GOD WHO SENT THEM . . .’’: ARISTOTLE AND AL-FĀRĀBĪ ON PROPHETIC VISION." Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 18, no. 2 (September 2008): 211–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0957423908000556.
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Al-Fārābī’s title of ‘‘Second Teacher’’ after Aristotle is well-warranted. Al-Fārābī’s work serves to illuminate the writings of the ‘‘First Teacher’’ in interesting and overlooked ways that go beyond the parameters of Aristotelian logic. Credence is lent to this assessment through the analysis of a specific topic, namely, authentic prophetic vision. At first glance, this seems like a strange assertion to make given Aristotle’s apparent skepticism and indifference regarding the topic of prophecy. However, as this paper will show, there is a latent theory of prophetic vision in the extant texts of Aristotle that al-Fārābī recognizes and completes in a way that is, in large part, faithful to and consistent with the corpus of Aristotle as we read it today. In the end, al-Fārābī provides insight into how a properly Aristotelian theory of authentic prophetic vision could be realized.
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Bradshaw, Leah. "Political Rule, Prudence and the “Woman Question” in Aristotle." Canadian Journal of Political Science 24, no. 3 (September 1991): 557–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0008423900022691.
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AbstractAristotle gives the classical definition of political rule as the kind of rule appropriate for free and equal persons. This concept of political rule is complicated, however, by the fact that, even in what Aristotle calls a free and equal association, the ruler is separated from the ruled by his possession of the virtue of prudence. This article explores the relation between political rule and prudence in Aristotle's writings, and considers particularly the case of political rule between men and women. Though Aristotle characterizes the proper relation between men and women as a free and equal one, he distinguishes the male/female political relation from the more general political relation by saying that men are naturally more fit to rule than women. We are interested in whether Aristotle excludes women from political rule because he thinks that women lack the potential for the virtue of prudence.
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Reynolds, Stuart. "Cooking up the perfect insect: Aristotle's transformational idea about the complete metamorphosis of insects." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 374, no. 1783 (August 26, 2019): 20190074. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0074.
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Aristotle made important contributions to the study of developmental biology, including the complete metamorphosis of insects. One concept in particular, that of the perfect or complete state, underlies Aristotle's ideas about metamorphosis, the necessity of fertilization for embryonic development, and whether morphogenesis involves an autonomous process of self-assembly. Importantly, the philosopher erroneously views metamorphosis as a necessary developmental response to lack of previous fertilization of the female parent, a view that is intimately connected with his readiness to accept the idea of the spontaneous generation of life. Aristotle's work underpins that of the major seventeenth century students of metamorphosis, Harvey, Redi, Malpighi and Swammerdam, all of whom make frequent reference to Aristotle in their writings. Although both Aristotle and Harvey are often credited with inspiring the later prolonged debate between proponents of epigenesis and preformation, neither actually held firm views on the subject. Aristotle's idea of the perfect stage also underlies his proposal that the eggs of holometabolous insects hatch ‘before their time’, an idea that is the direct precursor of the much later proposals by Lubbock and Berlese that the larval stages of holometabolous insects are due to the ‘premature hatching’ from the egg of an imperfect embryonic stage. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The evolution of complete metamorphosis’.
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Dangel, Tobias. "Hegel's Reception of Aristotle's Theology." Hegel Bulletin 41, no. 1 (September 27, 2019): 102–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/hgl.2019.14.
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AbstractIn several of his writings Hegel suggests an identification of his absolute idea/spirit with Aristotle's God in the Metaphysics. This suggestion is remarkable since it indicates that Hegel regarded his philosophy in line with classical positions in ancient metaphysics. Although there is increasing discussion of the relation between Hegel and Aristotle it is still doubtful what it was that Hegel seemed to find at the highest point of Aristotle's philosophy. To clarify this relation within the realm of first philosophy I will first give a short reconstruction of Aristotle's conception of God in order, second, to confront this conception with the absolute idea/spirit in Hegel. Against Ferrarin, I will not primarily discuss the conception of actuality/activity and infinite subjectivity; rather I will focus on Aristotle's and Hegel's ontological understanding of truth. The new thesis in my paper is that Hegel can relate his theory of the absolute idea/spirit to Aristotle's God on the basis of their shared understanding of truth. This understanding allows both of them to find the highest realization and thus the fulfillment of truth in the self-thinking thinking of God (Aristotle) or the self-thinking thinking of the absolute idea/spirit (Hegel). When Hegel seems to return to Aristotle at the end of his system, this return has its systematic link in the idea of a fulfilled truth which is God or the Absolute in the sense of self-thinking thinking. Although Hegel's return to Aristotle's theology has a certain plausibility, it is also limited by the fact that for Aristotle God's self-thinking thinking is not a process of self-determination, as Hegel finds it to be and which leads him to miss a crucial feature of Aristotle's theology.
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KUPREEVA, INNA. "ALEXANDER OF APHRODISIAS AND ARISTOTLE'S DE ANIMA: WHAT'S IN A COMMENTARY?" Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 55, no. 1 (June 1, 2012): 109–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-5370.2012.00036.x.
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Abstract A study of testimonia for Alexander's lost commentary on Aristotle's De anima can shed new light on his interpretation of Aristotle. Two cases are discussed. (1) Alexander reads De anima 3.12 (434b3–8) as applying teleological explanation of soul's powers to the souls of heavenly bodies, which in his own treatise De anima he excludes from the scope of psychology. Inclusive reading agrees with Alexander's position in other writings and must be his considered view. (2) Philoponus reports a Platonist (probably Numenius') exegesis of De anima 2.2 (413b11–13). Alexander's argument against it, with parallels in his other psychological writings, provides evidence that his controversial definition of soul as a power supervenient on elemental mixture is due, in part, to his polemic against Platonist readings of Aristotle's theory of soul and soul's powers.
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Wagstaff, Graham F. "Altruism, self-control, and justice: What Aristotle really said." Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25, no. 2 (April 2002): 278–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x02520057.
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As support for his position, Rachlin refers to the writings of Aristotle. However, Aristotle, like many social psychological theorists, would dispute the assumptions that altruism always involves self-control, and that altruism is confined to acts that have group benefits. Indeed, for Aristotle, as for equity theory and sociobiology, justice exists partly to curb the unrestrained actions of those altruists who are a social liability.
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Butler, Travis, and Eric Rubenstein. "Aristotle onNousof Simples." Canadian Journal of Philosophy 34, no. 3 (September 2004): 327–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00455091.2004.10716570.
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In so many of his epistemological writings, Aristotle defends a sensible flavor of gradualism about our cognitive capacities: we Start with the partial grasps afforded by what is better known to us, and if things go well, we end up with understandings of those objects better known by nature. The picture is of a step-wise process, rather than a transforming moment of illumination.In a difficult passage inMetaphysicsIX, however, Aristotle introduces a kind of cognition which admits of no more or less, no better or worse. With respect to simples(ta asuntheta),Aristotle Claims, knowing is like touching — there is contact, or there isn't. Put differently, for simple objects, what is necessary for thinking of them at all is sufficient for grasping them completely. For this reason, Aristotle sees error about simples as impossible: any successful thinking about them will be such as to preclude error. The only possible mistakes are failures even to have them in mind.
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Tzvi Langermann, Y. "Criticism of Authority in the Writings of Moses Maimonides and Fakhr Al-Din Al-Razi." Early Science and Medicine 7, no. 3 (2002): 255–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157338202x00144.
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AbstractCriticism of authority was a prominent feature of medieval philosophical writing. In this study the critiques of two contemporaneous scholars, Moses Maimonides and Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, are compared. Maimonides criticized Hellenistic authorities, mainly Aristotle. However, the starting point for his critique was Aristotle's admission of the limitations of his own inquiries. Maimonides admired Aristotle's questioning of his own conclusions; indeed, his own thought was characterized by constant self-doubt. Al-Rāzī criticized an earlier Muslim scholar, Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna), an intellectual giant whose imprint was strongly felt in philosophy and medicine. Al Rāzī used his commentaries on a number of Ibn Sīnā's books as a stage for criticizing the master and for arguing for his own, alternative viewpoints.
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LORENZ, HENDRIK. "Natural Goals of Actions in Aristotle." Journal of the American Philosophical Association 1, no. 4 (2015): 583–600. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/apa.2015.25.
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ABSTRACT:I argue that there are, according to Aristotle, two importantly different kinds of goals or ends in the domain of human agency and that one of these two kinds has been frequently, though not universally, overlooked. Apart from psychological goals, goals that agents adopt as their purposes, there are also, I submit, goals that actions have by being the kinds of actions they are and, in some cases, by occurring in the circumstances in which they do. These latter goals belong to suitable actions whether or not agents adopt them as purposes and whether or not agents are aware of them. There is evidence both in Aristotle's ethical writings and in his discussion of chance and luck in Physics II.4–6 that he recognizes goals of this latter kind.
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Classen, C. Joachim. "Aristotle. Writings and Influence. For Paul Moraux. Vol. I." Philosophy and History 20, no. 1 (1987): 96–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/philhist198720138.
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Welt, Thomas. "Die Harmonisierung platonischer und aristotelischer Ontologie im neuplatonischen Kategorienkommentar." Bochumer Philosophisches Jahrbuch für Antike und Mittelalter 20 (December 31, 2017): 49–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/bpjam.00003.wel.
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Zusammenfassung Commentaries on Plato’s and Aristotle’s works were central to the Neoplatonic school’s curriculum. In a fixed order, established since Jamblichus, the Aristotelian writings were first read, then the Platonic ones. At the beginning, the logical writings of Aristotle and particularly his Categories were examined. But like any other work, the Categories were construed from the perspective of Neoplatonic anagogy. In addition, the commentator was obliged to work out the commonalities between the two philosophical teachings. That anagogical and harmonising approach culminates in the commentaries on the Categories with the integration of the Aristotelian concept of substance into the Platonic concept of ideas. While Dexippus is primarily engaged in the right modes of predication corresponding to the sensible and the intelligible realm respectively, Simplicius focuses on the description of a continuous connection of being.
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Black, Antony. "Political Languages In Later Medieval Europe." Studies in Church History. Subsidia 9 (1991): 313–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0143045900002027.
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Certain aspects of both major and minor political writings in later medieval Europe remain intrinsically puzzling. Michael Wilks, in his seminal work on the ‘Problem of Sovereignty’ in this period called the later medieval and early modern epochs an ‘age of confusion’. One problem may be summed up as (1) What difference did Aristotle make? Ullmann argued that Aristotle made it possible to construct a plausible case for ‘the ascending’ (that is, quasi-democratic) view of authority. In that case, as Wilks persistently enquires: Why did defenders of papal monarchy make such free, prolific use of Aristotle?
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Tessitore, Aristide. "Making the City Safe for Philosophy: Nicomachean Ethics, Book 10." American Political Science Review 84, no. 4 (December 1990): 1251–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1963262.
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The perennially problematic relationship between philosophy and politics, though recognized as an important theme in the Platonic corpus, is virtually ignored in the writings of his most famous student. This is not due to the absence of the problem but the deftness of Aristotle's treatment. Attentiveness to both the requirements of moral-political life and the nature of philosophy gives rise to the rhetorical design of the Nicomachean Ethics. In the final book of the Ethics Aristotle establishes the value of philosophy by placing his argument within a broader context that reveals to what extent moral and intellectual excellence can be regarded as similar and even complementary. Without actually denying the existence of a fundamental tension between the requirements of philosophy and civic virtue, Aristotle succeeds in winning an at-least-partial acceptance of philosophy on the part of those who are (or will be) most responsible for the welfare of the city.
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Butterworth, Charles E. "Medieval Islamic Philosophy and the Virtue of Ethics." Arabica 34, no. 2 (1987): 221–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157005887x00298.
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AbstractThe goal of this essay is to set forth the ethical teaching of al-Fārābī and of Ibn Sina. However, because their writings and their philosophy are not well-known to us, it seems appropriate to move towards what is unknown by starting from what is known. The writings and philosophy of Plato and Aristotle being generally well-known to us, the essay begins by setting forth the main points of their ethical teaching and then moves to the main points of Fārābī's and Avicenna's ethical teaching. This method commands itself for another reason as well : Fārābī and Avicenna were quite familiar with the thinking of Plato and Aristotle, so familiar that they cast many of their own ideas in the idiom of their Greek predecessors or drew attention to their differences with them. This procedure leads to the basic conclusion that ethics is less important for Plato, Aristotle, and Fārābī than virtue - a point on which Avicenna presents a rather unique argument. For all of our authors except Aristotle, virtue is to be understood as subordinated to theoretical understanding. And a number of other conclusions are drawn, all serving to suggest that the current understanding of ethics is at odds with the traditional view and is unable to account adequately for political life.
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Butterworth, Charles E. "The Political Teaching of Averroes." Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 2, no. 2 (September 1992): 187–202. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0957423900001636.
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Though much has been written of late about Averroes and his philosophy, little attention has been paid to his political teaching. Generally speaking, his works can be divided into two categories: (a) commentaries on Aristotle and other important thinkers and (b) occasional treatises written to resolve particular questions. The subject of this essay, his political teaching, is stated most directly in the first classification of writings – especially in his commentaries on Aristotle's Rhetoric and Plato's Republic. Even though the second kind of writings helps to nuance some of his broader themes — especially the two treatises having to do with the relationship between philosophy anddivine law, namely, the Decisive Treatise and its sequel Kashf an manāhij al-adilla — considerations of space preclude an analysis of them here. Our examination of the first two writings will focus primarily on what Averroes has to say about the different kinds of political regimes and, above all, the best regime, for his discussion of it leads him to reflect more generally on other major political questions.
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Harvey, Steven. "Averroes' Use of Examples in his Middle Commentary on the Prior Analytics, and Some Remarks on his Role as Commentator." Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 7, no. 1 (March 1997): 91–113. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0957423900002277.
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Averroes wrote three kinds of commentaries on the books of Aristotle - epitomes, middle commentaries, and long commentaries - and each kind had its own purposes. His aims may have also differed from text to text. That is, it seems reasonable to assume that he would stick closer to Aristotle in the logical works than, for example, in the metaphysical works. The present study investigates what may be called the “theological aspects” of Averroes' commentaries, and explores the commentary of Averroes that appears least likely to contain such elements, the Middle Commentary on the Prior Analytics. The Prior Analytics is perhaps the most straightforward, even pedantic, of all of Aristotle's writings, and of Averroes' three kinds of commentaries, it is the middle commentaries which are least likely to diverge or digress from the text of Aristotle. The only trace of a religious hand in the commentary is Averroes' use of examples, and, in particular, examples that conclude that “the world is created” and the like. It is argued that Averroes chose these examples to show the traditionalist reading public the falsity of the theologians claims against the logic of the philosophers. The Appendix to the article shows that medieval commentators on Averroes' commentaries were also struck by his “creation of the world” examples.
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Schibli, H. S. "On ‘the one’ in Philolaus, fragment 7." Classical Quarterly 46, no. 1 (May 1996): 114–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cq/46.1.114.
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Presocratic philosophy, for all its diverse features, is united by the quest to understand the origin and nature of the world. The approach of the Pythagoreans to this quest is governed by their belief, probably based on studies of the numerical relations in musical harmony, that number or numerical structure plays a key role for explaining the world-order, the cosmos. It remains questionable to what extent the Pythagoreans, by positing number as an all-powerful explanatory concept, broke free from Presocratic ideas that certain stuffs or material elements sufficed to account for the source (⋯ρχ⋯) and constitution of the world, but apparently number found such a universal application with them that Aristotle could summarize the Pythagorean position as ‘numbers…are the whole universe’ (Met. 986a21). Historians of Greek philosophy have generally accepted Aristotle's assessment. Of late, however, certain scholars have argued that the Pythagorean number doctrine is Aristotelian (mis-) interpretation, unjustly foisted upon the Pythagoreans. Enlisted in support of their arguments are the fragments of Philolaus of Croton. Here we have the foremost representative of fifth-century Pythagoreanism, who states as his basic principles, not numbers exactly, but ‘limiters’ and ‘unlimiteds’, and who, it is argued, regards number solely as an epistemological aid for understanding the structure of reality. So Philolaus is called upon as a witness against Aristotle. The rationale goes something like this: Aristotle most likely had written sources for his knowledge of Pythagorean teachings; the only texts we know of with any certainty are Philolaus' book and the writings of Archytas; since Aristotle treats Archytas separately, he is mainly relying on Philolaus; because Philolaus does not expressly state that things are numbers, Aristotle's interpretation is wrong.
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Grau Torras, Sergi. "Aristotle in the Medical Works of Arnau de Vilanova (c. 1240–1311)." Early Science in Medicine 19, no. 3 (July 29, 2014): 236–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15733823-00193p02.
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Arnau de Vilanova, one of the most important physicians of the Latin Middle Ages, was familiar with the vast majority of Aristotle’s works that had been translated into Latin. He used a wide range of them, such as the Organon – the introductory books on logic – and the natural philosophical books, which cover a different branches of knowledge. He used Aristotle as an authority, trying to reconcile him with the field of medicine as practiced in his time. In so going, he defined a new theoretical model of medicine by the standards of natural philosophy, while continuing to emphasize the boundaries between medicine and natural philosophy. This paper represents to a first attempt to investigate the Aristotelian quotations in the medical writings of Arnau de Vilanova.
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White, Nicholas. "Aristoteles Und Wittgenstein: Ihre Gemeinsame Kritik an Platons Auffassung Praktischer Vernunft." Grazer Philosophische Studien 68, no. 1 (January 1, 2005): 163–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18756735-068001007.
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Book VII describes a point at which Plato's future rulers have completed their philosophical education. At that point they have a complete grasp of evaluative concepts (esp. of), in that they can articulate and defend defi nitions of them against all objections. Immediately, without further training, they are charged with applying these concepts in their city. By contrast, Aristotle's ethical and political writings do not envisage any such point. This difference between Plato and Aristotle is no expository accident, but refl ects a fundamental disagreement between their respective views of the relationship between grasping and applying concepts, especially evaluative concepts. Aristotle's view is importantly similar to Wittgenstein's later view of 'how to go on' using a word 'in the same way'. This paper explores some aspects of this similarity between Aristotle's and Wittgenstein's opposition to platonism.
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Anscombe, G. E. M. "Wittgenstein: Whose Philosopher?" Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 28 (March 1990): 1–10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s135824610000521x.
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One of the ways of dividing all philosophers into two kinds is by saying of each whether he is an ordinary man's philosopher or a philosophers' philosopher. Thus Plato is a philosophers' philosopher and Aristotle an ordinary man's philosopher. This does not depend on being easy to understand: a lot of Aristotle's Metaphysics is immensely difficult. Nor does being a philosophers' philosopher imply that an ordinary man cannot enjoy the writings, or many of them. Plato invented and exhausted a form: no one else has written such dialogues. So someone with no philosophical bent, or who has left his philosophical curiosity far behind may still enjoy reading some of them.
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Rosén, Hannah. "CONSIGNIFICARE and ΠPOƩƩHMAINEIN." Historiographia Linguistica 16, no. 3 (January 1, 1989): 225–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/hl.16.3.02ros.
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Summary Consignificare is used in Modistic writings to express both the concept of signifying only in context and that of signifying in addition to another element. This fusion of meanings, distinct and unassociated in the corresponding Greek terms of συσσημαίνειν and ποσσημαίνειν, had come about already in the sixth century, when – as is evident from Boethius’ commentaries on Aristotle – πϱοσσημαίνειν was radically reinterpreted: while it originally meant “to mark with” or “to indicate”, this compound came to be understood as “to indicate additionally”, having been used exclusively in conjunction with accidental properties. However, a literal translation of πϱοσσημαίνειν, reflecting exactly Aristotle’s purport of the term, is extant in Varronian adsignificare.
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Balot, Ryan K. "Epideictic Rhetoric and the Foundations of Politics." Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek Political Thought 30, no. 2 (2013): 274–304. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/20512996-90000542.
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At least since the time of Plato’s writings, epideictic rhetoric has been criticized as deceptive, as epistemologically bankrupt, and as politically irrelevant. Aristotle himself emphasizes that the key ‘topic’of epideictic is amplification and stresses that the epideictic orator chiefly adds ‘size’(megethos) and ‘beauty’(kallos) to widely shared memories. This paper reinterprets Aristotle’s statements and argues that Aristotle’s account brings to light significant civic resources embodied in epideictic. A genuine statesman uses ceremonial speech to articulate and explain a regime’s underlying ethos and purposes; thus he defines the regime’s telos and orients the citizenry toward it. In that way, it is argued, epideictic oratory is not the trivial cousin of deliberative and judicial rhetoric, but rather the rhetorical genre whose essential function is to explain and defend the fundamental building blocks of the regime.
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Pajón Leyra, Irene. "THE ARISTOTELIAN CORPUS AND THE RHODIAN TRADITION: NEW LIGHT FROM POSIDONIUS ON THE TRANSMISSION OF ARISTOTLE'S WORKS." Classical Quarterly 63, no. 2 (November 8, 2013): 723–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0009838813000207.
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The ancient sources tell a particular story about the destiny of the works of Aristotle and Theophrastus after Theophrastus' death. According to information provided mainly by Strabo and Plutarch, the texts produced by the Peripatetic school were lost and unavailable during a period of more than two hundred years, from the time of Neleus, the heir of Theophrastus' library, until Sulla's victory in Athens, in 86 b.c., at the end of his campaign against Mithridates. That was the point at which the private library of a famous bibliophile was confiscated: Apellicon of Teos, who at some time at the beginning of the first century b.c. had acquired the autograph papyri that contained the only copies of Aristotle's and his disciple's works. Sulla, so these sources maintain, recovered then for later generations the so-called ‘esoteric writings’ of Aristotle, and this prepared the ground for the general diffusion of Aristotelian thought, and for the work of Andronicus of Rhodes, whose name has gone down in history as the author of the editio princeps of the Aristotelian Corpus.
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Oyebode, Femi. "Should psychology be ‘positive’? Letting the philosophers speak: Commentary on … Hope, optimism and delusion." Psychiatric Bulletin 38, no. 2 (April 2014): 52–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1192/pb.bp.113.045823.
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SummaryThis is a brief commentary on the value of optimism in therapy. It draws on the philosophical writings of Schopenhauer and Aristotle. It suggests that the modern preoccupation with optimism may be as extreme as the bleak pessimistic outlook favoured by Schopenhauer.
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MÄKINEN, JUKKA, and MARJA-LIISA KAKKURI-KNUUTTILA. "The Defence of Utilitarianism in Early Rawls: A Study of Methodological Development." Utilitas 25, no. 1 (March 2013): 1–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0953820812000222.
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Rawls scholarship has not paid much attention to Rawls's early methodological writings so far, pretty much focusing on the reflective equilibrium (RE) which he is understood to have adopted in A Theory of Justice. Nelson Goodman's coherence-theoretical formulations concerning the justification of inductive logic in Fact, Fiction and Forecast have been suggested as the source of the RE. Following Rawls's methodological development in his early works, we shall challenge both these views. Our analysis reveals that the basic elements of RE can be located in his ‘Two Concepts of Rules’ essay. We shall further show that the origins of RE go all the way back to Aristotle's methods of ethics, as RE accords with the methodology entitled saving the appearances (SA) in recent Aristotle scholarship.
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Halliwell, S. "The subjection of muthos to logos: Plato's citations of the poets." Classical Quarterly 50, no. 1 (May 2000): 94–112. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cq/50.1.94.
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According to Aristotle,Metaphysics(a) 2.3, 995a7–8, there are people who will take seriously the arguments of a speaker (including, it seems, those of a philosopher) only if a poet can be cited as a ‘witness’ in support of them. Aristotle's passing observation sharply reminds us that Greek philosophy had developed within, and was surrounded by, a culture which extensively valued the authority of the poetic word and the poet's ‘voice’ from which it emanated. The currency of ideas, values, and images disseminated through familiarity with poetry had always been a force with which philosophy, in its various manifestations, needed to reckon. As a mode of thought and discourse which proclaimed its aspiration to wisdom, philosophy could not easily eschew some degree of dialogue with an art whose practitioners had traditionally (and for much longer than anyone had been called a ‘philosopher') been ranked prominently among thesophoi. Even Aristotle, who keeps aloof from the assumption that philosophical contentions stand in need of poetic support, cites and quotes poetry regularly in his own writings in ways which indicate the influence on him of a prevailing mentality that regarded poets and philosophers as pursuers, up to a point at least, of a common wisdom.
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Cooper, John M. "Metaphysics in Aristotle's Embryology." Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 34 (1988): 14–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0068673500005022.
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Traditionally, discussion of Aristotle's metaphysics, including his theory of form and the ‘what it is to be’ any given substantial object, has dealt extensively with relevant texts in the Categories, Physics, De anima and, of course, the Metaphysics itself. But the biological works have been largely neglected as sources for knowledge about and insight into Aristotle's theory. This seems to me unfortunate. In his biological works Aristotle invokes the form of an animal constantly and in interesting physical and, one would have said, metaphysical detail, as the explanation for much, and that the crucial part, of what happens to it as it develops to maturity and maintains and reproduces itself. One would expect these explanations to reveal something about the character of Aristotelian forms and perhaps even to help resolve some of the many questions not clearly settled by him in his metaphysical writings. It might, I suppose, be argued, on the contrary, that Aristotle thought that the notion of form needed for metaphysical purposes is quite distinct from that needed in order to explain the biological phenomena addressed in the Parts and the Generation of Animals. Conceivably there is no, or only a very loose, systematic connection between what is said about forms in the two sets of works, so that one is not entitled to infer metaphysical consequences – consequences for the nature of forms as they appear and are argued about on metaphysical terrain – from what forms are taken to be like in the biological context. I will not attempt to argue against this line of interpretation here. In the belief that the philosophical interest of doing so will be sufficient justification, I will simply proceed on the natural assumption that Aristotle did intend his biological theory of forms to be a continuous development and extension of whatever theory of substantial forms he meant to be the upshot of his discussion in the central books of the Metaphysics.
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Leonard, Miriam. "Irigaray's Cave: Feminist Theory and the Politics of French Classicism." Ramus 28, no. 2 (1999): 152–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0048671x00001764.
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Although there are countless feminist readings of Plato and readings of Plato as (a) feminist, the French feminist theorist Luce Irigaray's extended—nearly 200 page!—reading of the cave passage from Book 7 of Plato's Republic may still come as something of a surprise to the classicist. In the recently published book Feminist Interpretations of Plato, however, there is an essay by Irigaray on Plato's Symposium included as just another example of this now established genre. Just any other?—well not quite… As in its sister volume Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle, the editors have decided that unlike any other article in the collection, Irigaray's contribution needs some further exegesis for the classical scholar. An essay on Irigaray reading Plato appears in tandem to her own article. Just like in the Aristotle volume, this essay presents itself as a guide to the perplexed, explaining to the ancient philosopher schooled in a more traditional idiom of Anglo-Saxon academic research some of the context for Irigaray's seemingly inappropriate style. Freeland writes of Irigaray's Aristotle piece: ‘Irigaray's essay will be astonishing to the Aristotle scholar who reads it unaware of Irigaray's earlier writings’; in fact, she continues, ‘…it may seem unclear whether one is reading Aristotle scholarship, a primitive biology text or an erotic novel ….Reading her then,’ she concludes, ‘is far different from reading the usual commentators on the Physics. Clearly, style is paramount to Irigaray's method of reading.’
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Griffin, Miriam. "De Beneficiis and Roman Society." Journal of Roman Studies 93 (November 2003): 92–113. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3184640.
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The exchange of beneficia — gifts and services — was an important feature of Greek and Roman society at all periods. Its prominence was reflected in the number of philosophical works that analysed the phenomenon. From the fourth century B.C. onwards, εὐεργεσία and χάρις became subjects of moral discourse. Xenophon, particularly in his Socratic works and the Cyropaideia, and Aristotle, in his rhetorical and ethical writings, already anticipate much of what the Hellenistic schools were to elaborate. One of Aristotle's followers gave the first clear formulation we have of the idea that ‘the giving and interchange of favours holds together the lives of men’. Aristotle's successor Theophrastus wrote the first treatise we know of to deal wholly and specifically with the subject of χάρις. His On Gratitude (περὶ χάριτος: D.L. 5.48) had a long line of successors, including Epicurus' On Gifts and Gratitude (περὶ δώρων καὶ χάριτος: D.L. 10.28) and Chrysippus' Stoic treatments of the subject, both as part of a general work On Duties (περὶ κατορθωμάτων) and in a separate work On Favours (περὶ χαρίτων) (SVF 3.674; 2.1081 ).
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Sarnowsky, Jürgen. "Place and Space in Albert of Saxony's Commentaries on the Physics." Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 9, no. 1 (March 1999): 25–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0957423900002599.
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Albert of Saxony, master of Arts at Paris from 1351 until 1361/62, has left two commentaries on the Physics of Aristotle. Since he was well aware of the tradition, his writings may serve for an analysis of the transmision of ideas from the ancient and Arabic philosophers into the fourteenth century. In this paper, this is exemplified by the problems of place and space, especially by those of the definition of place and of the immobility of place, of natural place and of the location of the last and outermost sphere. As a result, four modes emerge how an author of the fourteenth century may have been influenced by tradition. Ancient Greek or Pre-Socratic philosophers were mainly known through Aristotle, and thus their opinions were mostly refuted; the same holds true for later ancient or Arabic authors known through the commentaries of Averroes; the influence of the authors of the thirteenth century was present though their texts may not have been directly consulted; and, finally, the contemporary authors were known, but nearly never quoted. Thus, though there was a line of tradition from Aristotle into the fourteenth century, there was also room for proper “medieval” solutions.
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Carbone, Raffaele, and Koen Vermeir. "Malebranche et les pouvoirs de l'imagination." RIVISTA DI STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA, no. 4 (October 2012): 661–69. http://dx.doi.org/10.3280/sf2012-004001.
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Malebranche's ideas about the imagination have inspired philosophers over the centuries. Drawing on the writings of Aristotle, Bacon, Descartes and many other sources, Malebranche created his own innovative theory. It is especially his work on the force of the imagination, however, that was to be of lasting influence. In this introductory article, we briefly discuss Malebranche's theory of the imagination and point out its role in mathematics, contagion of ideas, monstrous births, errors of the mind and rhetoric.
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Allen, Prudence. "Plato, Aristotle, and the Concept of Woman in Early Jewish Philosophy." Florilegium 9, no. 1 (January 1987): 89–111. http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/flor.9.005.
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The purpose of this paper is to consider the relationship between ancient Greek philosophy and early Jewish philosophy in the particular concept of woman articulated by Philo, Solomon Ibn Gabirol (Avicebron), Moses Ben Maimon (Maimonides), and Leone Ebreo (Jehudah Abrabanel). While the concept of woman proposed by Jewish thought has often been approached through a study of religious writings or historical documents, there has been little written on the specifically philosophical components of the theory of woman’s identity. This paper will seek to demonstrate the similarities and differences in the concepts of woman in four Jewish philosophers who lived between the first and the sixteenth centuries AD. In addition, the relation between these views and the theories of Plato and Aristotle will be examined.
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Kraut, Richard. "Some Ancient Greek and Twentieth-Century Theories of Value." Grazer Philosophische Studien 97, no. 3 (August 20, 2020): 374–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18756735-000103.
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Abstract Plato puts goodness at the center of all practical thinking but offers no definition of it and implies that philosophy must find one. Aristotle demurs, arguing that there is no such thing as universal goodness. What we need, instead, is an understanding of the human good. Plato and Aristotle are alike in the attention they give to the category of the beneficial, and they agree that since some things are beneficial only as means, there must be others that are non-derivatively beneficial. When G. E. Moore proposed in the early twentieth century that goodness is, as Plato had said, the foundation of ethics, he rejected not only the assumption that goodness needs a definition, but also that goodness is beneficial – that is, good for someone. This article traces the development of this debate as it plays out in the writings of Prichard, Ross, Geach, Thomson, and Scanlon.
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Semchynskiy, K. "Controvers of the theory of just war in the writings of philosophers and Christian theologians." Ukrainian Religious Studies, no. 29 (March 9, 2004): 95–103. http://dx.doi.org/10.32420/2004.29.1489.
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Just war theory has a long history, during which it changed its nature and its constituent components. Its purpose was to justify and limit the evil of war. The term just war is found in Aristotle in his work "Politics" and is used in describing the wars fought by the Greeks "in the name of the spread of culture and civilization" against non-Greeks, because they were considered barbarians. In fact, the cause of these wars was the expansion of political and economic control over new territories.
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Wolfe, Christopher James. "Alasdair MacIntyre on the Grand End Conception of Practical Reasoning." Polis, The Journal for Ancient Greek Political Thought 33, no. 2 (September 20, 2016): 312–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/20512996-12340096.
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Most interpreters of Aristotle claim that he either explicitly posited or at least implied a Grand End theory of practical reasoning as part of his ethical teachings. Sarah Broadie, in her 1991 book Ethics with Aristotle, denied this claim, which prompted Alasdair MacIntyre to respond in kind. After summarizing Broadie’s objection and MacIntyre’s rejoinder, I shall explore the deeper philosophical reasons that underpin MacIntyre’s conviction regarding this matter, establishing that the Grand End conception of practical reasoning is a supposition held throughout MacIntyre’s mature body of writings. Then I shall argue for the main thesis of this paper, that MacIntyre’s conception of practical reasoning entails that he also maintains an inclusive end conception of the human good, which necessarily follows from his specific view of practical reasoning. Alasdair MacIntyre calls attention to what other scholars in some ways neglect: the conception of a Grand End is advantageous for the practical reasoning and virtuous living of even the average person.
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Harvey, Celeste. "Eudaimonism, Human Nature, and the Burdened Virtues." Hypatia 33, no. 1 (2018): 40–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/hypa.12389.
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This article explores the prospects for a eudaimonist moral theory that is both feminist and Aristotelian. Making the moral philosophy developed by Aristotle compatible with a feminist moral perspective presents a number of philosophical challenges. Lisa Tessman offers one of the most sustained feminist engagements with Aristotelian eudaimonism (Tessman 2005). However, in arguing for the account of flourishing that her eudaimonist theory invokes, Tessman avoids taking a stand either for or against the role Aristotle assigned to human nature. She draws her account of flourishing instead from the beliefs about flourishing implicit in the feminist and black freedom movements. I examine the implicit conception of flourishing in the writings of two prominent leaders of the black freedom movement—Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X—and argue that Tessman's attempt to avoid the “sticky issue” of human nature is not successful. Tessman's defense of the burdened virtues depends on a particular reading of human nature as does a eudaimonist account of the virtues more generally.
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König, Götz. "The Pahlavi Literature of the 9th Century and Greek Philosophy." Iran and the Caucasus 22, no. 1 (May 15, 2018): 8–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573384x-20180103.
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Since the Hellenistic times (if not earlier) Iran participates in the philosophical development of classical Greece. In the times of the Sasanians some knowledge of Aristotelian and Neo-Platonic thinking is detectable, and treatises were written for Xosrō I by philosophers who were well acquainted with the writings of Aristotle. It was always maintained that also Sasanian Zoroastrianism was affected through these Greek-Iranian contacts. But it is remarkable that among the Zoroastrian writings of the 9th-10th centuries only two books–Dēnkard 3 and Škand Gumānīg Wīzār–seem to be substantially influenced by Aristotelian/Neo-Platonic terms and concepts. The paper deals with the question whether the Greek elements within these texts should not better be understood as the fruit of a Zoroastrian participation in the general interest of the Islamic world in Greek thinking in Abbasid Baghdad.
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Wesoły, Marian. "On Gorgias’ Particular Demonstration." Peitho. Examina Antiqua, no. 1(4) (June 3, 2014): 159–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.14746/pea.2013.1.8.
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The label idios apodeixis/logos «particular (personal, original) demonstration or argument» of Gorgias is known to us only from the third section of the little work attributed to Aristotle under the title De Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia. Its authenticity seems to be unjustly questioned. We try to show that from the Aristotelian perspective we can properly understand the context of Gorgias’ own argument from his lost treatise On Not-Being or On Nature. Parmenides – using implicitly the polysemy of the verb ἔστιν/εἶναι – presented a certain ontological argument «being is, because being is being». Gorgias, however, makes a parody of this by offering a meontological argument: «not-being is because not-being is not-being». Consequently Gorgias then attempts to demonstrate, by means of refutation, that «it is not either to be or not be», i.e. «nothing is». We propose, thus, a reconstruction of Gorgias’ account of meonological and nihilistic argumentation. In this context we find in Plato’s Sophist and in Aristotle’s writings certain allusions to Gorgias’ idios apodeixis, which have not been sufficiently recognized and properly interpreted.
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Englard, Izhak. "The Problem of Equity in Maimonides." Israel Law Review 21, no. 3-4 (1986): 296–332. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021223700009171.
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Concern with the question of equity – in the Aristotelian sense of epieikeia – in the teaching of Maimonides has been revived by the profound study of this basic and complex subject by the late Eliezer Shimshon Rosenthal. The immediate purpose of that study, amplified in the intricate manner characteristic of the author, is to show that Maimonides' answer regarding the Halakhah on the last hour for eating hamez on the eve of Pessah is intimately associated with his perception of the generality of the Torah as expressed in Part III, chapter 34 of The Guide of the Perplexed, and comparable to another well-known responsum of his concerning the prohibition of listening to musical song.In the course of his discussion, the author points out the connection between Maimonides' approach and the writings of Aristotle, and in a special appendix he enlarges on the relationship of Aristotle to Plato. Rosenthal's understanding of Maimonides' position gave rise to a critical response by Shalom Rosenberg, which in turn led other scholars to contribute to the debate with their own clarifications and comments.
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Abattouy, Mohammed. "Greek Mechanics in Arabic Context: Thābit ibn Qurra, al-Isfizārī and the Arabic Traditions of Aristotelian and Euclidean Mechanics." Science in Context 14, no. 1-2 (June 2001): 179–247. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0269889701000084.
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Assuming the crucial interest of Arabic material for the recovery of the textual tradition of some Greek texts of mechanics, the following article aims at presenting a partial survey of the Graeco-Arabic transmission in the field of mechanics. Based on new manuscript material dating from the ninth to the twelfth century, it investigates the textual and theoretical traditions of two writings ascribed to Aristotle and Euclid respectively and transmitted to Arabo-Islamic culture in fragmentary form. The reception and the impact of the Peripatetic Mechanics are analyzed on the basis of texts edited by al-Khāzinī as well as by the comparative study of the proof of the law of the lever in three authors: Pseudo-Aristotle, Thābit ibn Qurra, and al-Isfizārī. The codicological analysis of the extant manuscripts of Maqāla fī ‘l-mīzān – a rather systematic treatise on the balance ascribed to Euclid – leads to the assumption that it is a Greek fragment edited in Arabic. This reconstruction of the Arabic tradition of Euclidean mechanics is further elaborated by an annotated synopsis of al-Isfizārī's systematic recension of the text.
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Van Den Berg, Hugo A. "Occam's Razor: From Ockham's via Moderna to Modern Data Science." Science Progress 101, no. 3 (September 2018): 261–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.3184/003685018x15295002645082.
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The principle of parsimony, also known as ‘Occam's razor’, is a heuristic dictum that is thoroughly familiar to virtually all practitioners of science: Aristotle, Newton, and many others have enunciated it in some form or other. Even though the principle is not difficult to comprehend as a general heuristic guideline, it has proved surprisingly resistant to being put on a rigorous footing – a difficulty that has become more pressing and topical with the ‘big data’ explosion. We review the significance of Occam's razor in the philosophical and theological writings of William of Ockham, and survey modern developments of parsimony in data science.