Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Aristotles'

COORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DO PESSOAL DE ENSINO SUPERIOR
A presente tese de doutorado trata da catarse, da emoção e do prazer na Poética de Aristóteles. O filósofo não define o que entende por catarse trágica na obra; no entanto, ele nos diz que a trama trágica suscita duas emoções dolorosas – piedade e temor – e, além disso, surte um prazer que lhe é próprio. A questão é entender como estes dois opostos, prazer e dor, relacionam-se entre si e se no esclarecimento dessa relação encontramos também pistas para interpretarmos a catarse.
The PHD thesis presented here is a reflection on the problems of catharsis, emotion and pleasure on Aristotle’s Poetics. In his work, the philosopher does not define what he understands as tragic catharsis; nevertheless, he tells us that the tragic framework arouses two painful emotions - pity and fear - besides originating an inherent pleasure. The arising questions are: how can pleasure and pain, being converses, relate and if on the event of this issue being clarified will we provide hints for interpreting catharsis.

What is political philosophy? Aristotle pursues that question by asking what the good is. If Nietzsche's postmodern diagnosis that modern philosophical rationalism has exhausted itself is true, it is unclear if an answer to that question is possible. Yet given the prevalence of extremist ideologies in 20th century politics, and the politically irresponsible support of philosophers for these ideologies, there is an urgent need for an answer. This thesis examines how, in these philosophical circumstances, Hannah Arendt, Leo Strauss, and Alasdair MacIntyre conclude that a key resource in the recovery of political philosophy, and in showing its contemporary relevance, lies in the recovery of Aristotle's political philosophy. This thesis contends that how and why Arendt, Strauss, and MacIntyre turn to Aristotle, and what they find in Aristotle, depends on their varying critiques of modernity. Convinced that the philosophical tradition is shattered irreversibly after the events of totalitarianism, Arendt argues for a retrieval of Aristotle and his understanding of politics from the fragments of that tradition. Strauss is impelled to turn to the political philosophy of Aristotle because of the crisis of radical historicism, to recover classical rationalism’s answer to what the good is. MacIntyre turns to Aristotle to find the moral justification for rejecting Stalinism that contemporary philosophical traditions fail to provide; he reconstructs an Aristotelian tradition that can answer the question of what the good is better than his contemporary rivals. Although these thinkers may appear disparate, this thesis argues that each addresses the question of what the good is by offering a vision of political philosophy as a way of life, which Aristotle helps form. This way of life probes the relationship between philosophy and politics as permanent problem for human existence. In recovering this tradition of thinking with Aristotle about the character of political philosophy, this thesis aims to contribute to the understanding of each of these thinkers, as well as to the practice of political philosophy in modern, post-Nietzschean times.

This paper is an analysis of Aristotle’s Politics in its critique of Plato’s Republic in reference to the topics of the ideal state and the role of the family. I focused on books I-III in Aristotle’s Politics to gain a deep understanding on Aristotle’s conception of the state and it’s goals in relation to its citizens as well as his critique on Plato’s ideal state. I also read book V and parts of book III of Plato’s Republic to gain a strong understanding of Plato’s requirements of the ideal state. In exploring the ideal states put forth by Plato and Aristotle, it became clear that the two sources of friction are in the state and the family. The first chapter of this paper discusses the general themes of Aristotle’s Politics such as how the state came to exist and the relationship between the good man and the good citizen. The second chapter offers insight to book V of Plato’s Republic but its majority is a focus on the critique of Plato’s proposed guardian or ruling class. The third and final chapter is an examination of how seriously one should take both Plato and Aristotle in their implications for the state and a tongue-in-cheek analysis of Aristotle’s critique of Plato in relation to the role of philosophy. This paper is concluded by considering the true implications of these philosophers on the role of reason and politics; more specifically considering how much of a role reason can have in promoting the state or the family. In understanding the guidelines of these two ideal states, one is better prepared in discussing the role of the family in modern government and to what extent both the family and the state can thrive together.

Ce travail a pour objet d'interroger le statut épistémologique de l'éthique comme science pratique et d'expliciter l'affirmation d'Aristote selon laquelle l'éthique est une science. Nous abordons cette question en deux temps : le premier est celui d'une confrontation de l'éthique avec les autres savoirs aristotéliciens dans le but de spécifier la catégorie de savoir pratique dégagée en metaph. E. 1, le second est une étude des principales particularités du savoir pratique. Dans le but de déterminer ces différentes particularités, nous revenons sur les obstacles à la scientificité de l'éthique et nous analysons ce que nous considérons être des instruments du savoir pratique : le syllogisme pratique, les endoxa, les portraits et les exemples
In this work, I will question the epistemological status of ethics as practical knowledge and I will explain the Aristotelian affirmation that ethics is a science. I will proceed in two axes : the first one is a confrontation of the ethics to the other knowledges in order to specify the nature of the category of practical knowledge brought out in metaph. E. 1, and the second one is a study of main particularities of practical knowledge. In order to specify those particularities, I will define the impediments to ethics' scientificity and I will analyze what I identified as instruments for the elaboration of a practical knowledge : practical syllogism, endoxa, portraits and examples

Texte remanié de: M.A. dissertation--Faculty of the School of philosophy--Washington (D.C.)--Catholic university of America, 1988.
Mentions de collection et de collection parallèle partiellemnt translittérées du grec. Bibliogr. p. 99-114. Index.

Detta arbete cirkulerar det vida begreppet kunskap. Genom att fokusera begreppet till en bestämd ontologisk och epistemologisk sfär, och med hjälp av Aristoteles kunskapsanalys konkretisera det, tillämpas ett analytiskt greppbart kunskapsbegrepp på gymnasieskolans svenskämnesplan. Syftet med en sådan praktisk operation är dels att undersöka svenskämnets specifika kunskapsutrymme, dels att kunna vidga kunskapsdiskussionen till läroplans- och samhällsnivå. Utförda kunskapsanalys av ämnesplanen visar en dubbelhet i kunskapsanvändningen. Å ena sidan inkluderas såväl teoretisk som olika former av praktisk kunskap i ämnets syfte. En tendens att beskriva fronetiskt anstruken kunskap i samband med syftet iakttas. Å andra sidan görs i huvudsak två iakttagelser av reduktionistiska kunskapsuttryck. För det första låter sig en kvantifiering av kunskapsuttrycken i ämnesplanen ställas upp linjärt instrumentellt: epistemisk kunskap behövs för technisk kunskap som i sin tur har fronetisk kunskap som mål. En sådan kunskapsgång tar inte hänsyn till den hermeneutiskt förstådda tolkningsprocessen i vilken utgångspunkten för kunskapande är stadd i ständig förändring. För det andra är ämnesplanens punktlista i stora drag undantagen fronetiska kunskapsuttryck, något som visar på en i grunden särskiljande syn på vad kunskap är, och hur den kan behandlas. Faran med den här typen av reducerade retoriska eller pedagogiska uppställningar av vad kunskap är, beskrivs i analysen vara en kategoriserings implicit normerande effekter.Med detta sagt konkluderas att kunskapsbegreppet sedan 1990-talet i en utbildnings-teoretisk kontext behandlats ingående, och i många avseenden nyanserat, utan att för den sakens skull lyckas bibehålla sin komplexitet i någon allmän mening. Istället verkar skoldebatt och samhällssyn spegla en ytlig kunskapsförståelse där analytiska kategoriseringar, likt de fyra F:en - fakta, förståelse, färdighet, förtrogenhet - hålls som faktiska kunskapsentiteter. Som motdrag föreslås en fokusering på ett fronetiskt-hermeneutiskt förstått bildningsbegrepp. Ett sådant kunde beskriva ett förhållningssätt till, eller en beredskap inför kunskap snarare än att kategorisera kunskapen per se.

In his ethical treatises Aristotle offers a rich account of those conditions that render people’s behaviour involuntary, and defines voluntariness on the basis of the absence of these conditions. This dissertation has two aims. One is to offer an account of the significance of the notions of involuntariness and voluntariness for Aristotle’s ethical project that satisfactorily explains why he deems it necessary to discuss these notions in his Ethics. My own account of the significance of these notions for Aristotle’s Ethics emerges from my arguments against the two most influential views concerning this significance: I argue that Aristotle’s concern with voluntariness in his Ethics is not (primarily) shaped by a concern with accountability, i.e. with those conditions under which fully mature and healthy rational agents are held accountable or answerable for their actions; nor is it (primarily) shaped by a concern with the conditioning of pain-responsive agents for the sake of socially useful ends that are not, intrinsically, their own. Rather, his concern is with reason-responsive agents (which are not morally accountable agents, nor merely pain-responsive agents) and the conditions for attributing ethically significant behaviour to them. This is what I call ‘ethical ascription’. The second aim of this dissertation is to provide a comprehensive account of those conditions that defeat the ascription of ethically significant pieces of behaviour to reason-responsive agents, and to show the distinctiveness of Aristotle’s views on the nature of these conditions. The conclusions I arrive at in this respect are shaped by the notion of ethical ascription that I develop as a way of reaching the first aim.

This thesis examines Aristotle’s dynamic, organic model of teleological explanation to see if it is a viable alternative to material reductionism. I argue that his teleology provides both a model for and an overview of the scientific enterprise. Aristotle’s theory of knowledge and perception is capable of exerting a unifying effect on the diversity of knowledge. The adoption of substance ontology gives a deeper understanding of any subject than a strictly cause-effect approach. His hylomorphism provides a clearer idea of the role of necessity in regular natural processes, and identifies the role of chance events as accidental anomalies. His actual-potential distinction is the key to understanding both Aristotle’s teleological approach and the complexity and diversity of living things. Aristotle’s teleology does not use only finality: all four conditions of change are incorporated as necessary and sufficient conditions for explanation and full understanding of change. Aristotle’s teleology, based on the human being as part of nature, is applicable at least in biological sciences to provide both a scientific methodology and a scientific method for the study of nature. It is particularly relevant to ecological studies, while his notion of the ‘good’ could be an acceptable criterion for funding of sustainable development.

ModaI logic is concerned with the logic of necessity and possibility. The central problem of modal ontology is summed up in the following question, "What are the ontological commitments of the user of modal terminology? " This thesis is primarily about the ontological commitments that Aristotle made when he employed modal terms. Aristotle’s modal ontology is h e r e analysed in conjunction with four modal problems. My primary objective, is to clarify some of the discussions of Aristotle's modal ontology that have been advanced by certain twentieth century philosophers. The first problem to be considered is the famous ' sea battle’ argument of De Interpretatione 9 . Here is a summary of the problem: If it is currently true that there will be a sea battle tomorrow, then in some sense it is inevitable that there will in fact be a sea battle; if predictions are true, is not a form of determinism being supported? One analysis in particular is studied at length, namely that of Jaakko Hintikka. Hintikka holds that the sea battle argument is best Interpreted if the metaphysical principle of plenitude is attributed to Aristotle. The principle of plenitude effectively merges modality with temporality; what is necessarily the case is always true, and vice versa. Hintikka also interprets Aristotle's stand on the ‘Master Argument’ of Diodorus in light of the attribution of the principle of plenitude to Aristotle. Diodorus' argument is the second of the four problems that this essay considers,. Unlike Aristotle, Diodorus appears to have favored a strong version of determinism. According to Hintikka, Diodorus actually strove to prove the principle of plenitude (as opposed to assuming it, as Aristotle presumably did). I am very sceptical regarding Hintikka's interpretations of these two problems. The sea battle argument is not adequately answered by the solution which Hintikka sees Aristotle adopting. Alternative answers are relatively easy to come by. The evidence cited by Hintikka for ascribing the principle of plenitude is, it is shown, somewhat inconclusive. As for the Master Argument, there is a great deal of paucity in regards to textual evidence. Hinikka himself virtually concedes this point. (Thus, whereas I feel it to be incumbent to offer an alternative interpretation of the sea battle argument, I do not share this attitude towards the Master Argument.) The third and fourth problems play a key role in twentieth century analytic philosophy. Both were first formulated by W.V. Quine in the forties. These problems are somewhat subtle and will not be explained further. Suffice it to say that an analysis of Aristotle's works by Alan Code reveals that the Stagirite had an answer to Quine's criticisms of modal logic.
Arts, Faculty of
Philosophy, Department of
Graduate

The mind as it is found in Aristotle's great work De Anima is a special capacity of the soul. It has both active and passive properties that work together to allow discursive thinking and moral ethical behavior to emerge. This work will look at Aristotle's philosophy of mind, and I will forward a new interpretation of the mind as he understood it: what I call the active and passive mind property dualism. Aristotle's four causes allow for a unique application of a form of dualism that accounts for the ontological status of the mind and the emergence of rational thinking. The importance of potentiality and actuality in Aristotle's metaphysics gives a different sort of formulation of the mind-body problem than is traditionally understood in the philosophy of mind. The first section of this paper will look at the terms used, especially actuality and potentiality. A comparison to Plato's tripartite soul will be given. Next, Aristotle's different kinds of soul and their varied capacities will be explored. Finally, the active mind will be explained as it appears in Book III, chapter 5.
ID: 030476185; System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader.; Mode of access: World Wide Web.; Accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for honors in the major in Philosophy.; Thesis (B.A.)--University of Central Florida, 2011.; Includes bibliographical references (p. 32-34).
B.A.
Bachelors
Arts and Humanities
Philosophy

Le but de cette étude est de fonder la parenté entre l'essence hégélienne, le Wesen, et le ti en einai aristotélicien; parenté qu'on croit être non seulement littérale, mais plus proprement spéculative. En effet, le Wesen comme le ti en einai rappellent un sens de passé, mais de passé hors du temps, qui est même spéculatif et théorétique. En particulier, on essaiera de relire certains moments de la Science de la logique en utilisant comme pierre de touche les Leçons sur l'histoire de la philosophie que Hegel a dédiées à Aristote. Déjà la bipartition de la logique objective en « Logique de l'être» et « Logique de l'essence» est une reprise d'Aristote: la science, en allant en profondeur, recherche au-delà de l'être (to on) et, une fois découverte l'essence (ti en einai), élève cette dernière à son objet. Le chemin logique qui va de l'être à l'essence pense éminemment cette vérité. La démonstration de la parenté entre Wesen et ti en einai aurait un double mérite : tout d'abord, celui de clarifier des passages très importants de la Doctrine de l'essence en dissolvant, en parallèle, les ambiguïtés dont le corpus aristotélicien reste susceptible; d'autre part, celui de lire correctement l'imparfait en de la formule monnayée par Aristote; un imparfait, d'après moi, qui ne peut qu'être métaphysique et concerner, donc, ce qui est nécessaire, immuable, hors du temps précisément en tant qu'il légitime le temps, c'est-à-dire qu'il fonde ontologiquement le temps en lui donnant sa vérité. Le travail se compose de quatre chapitres, qui sont quatre moments d'enquête bien distincts : Le premier chapitre, après quelques remarques méthodologiques, offrira une première interprétation générale de l'essence en tant que dynamis, en axant le parallèle sur les concepts aristotéliciens d'essence, d'acte et de but, qu'on utilisera ici comme un laboratoire conceptuel pour l'intégralité de notre travail.Le deuxième chapitre porte sur le sich erinnert de l'être dans l'essence, c'est-à-dire le passage à un niveau différent d'argumentation logique, à partir de son lien d'un côté avec l'anamnesis platonicienne, de l'autre avec le tien einai aristotélicien.Le troisième chapitre problématise le rôle de la Reflexion en tant que processualité immanente de l'essence, en reconsidérant l'équilibre complexe entre être et essence, respectivement, comme proteron pros hemas et proteron te physei, qui correspondent à leur tour aux expressions aristotéliciennes ti esti et tien einai.Le quatrième chapitre aborde le problème de la Wirklichkeit qui clôt la Doctrine de l'essence, en l'interprétant, selon l'indication hégélienne, comme energeia et entelecheia
The aim of this research is to prove the relationship between the Hegelian concept of Wesen and Aristotle's ti en einai from a not merely lexical point of view. I will specially attempt the reading of some fundamental moments of the Science of logic using the Lectures on the history of philosophy that Hegel dedicates to the Stagirite. Both signifiers, Wesen and ti en einai, refer to a sense of past, but timelessly past (zeitlos), which is pregnantly speculative. Hegel structures the division of the Objective Logic in two books, "Being" and ''Essence", on the mode( of the Aristotelian episteme. True science, meaning the one that goes deeply, looks beyond Being (to on) and, once found its Essence (ti en einai), puts this fast one as its abject. The logical journey from Being to Essence thinks highly this truth. I am convinced that founding such a relationship between the above-mentioned terms has a twofold contribution: On the one hand, which one of clarifying some key-moments of the Doctrine of Essence, so disambiguating expressions, or "formulas" that the Stagirite frequently uses as synonyms (i.e. essence, act, purpose and form); On the other hand, which one of reading, and correctly understanding, the past tense en in the middle of the Aristotelian formula; a past tense definitely metaphysical, which refers to what is necessary, unchangeable, out of time just because it is what time needs most of all and what legitimates time. The dissertation articulates into four chapters, corresponding to four distinct moments of investigation: Chapter I starts with some methodological remarks, and then provides my first general interpretation of the Hegelian Essence as dynamis. I will found this kind of reading on the Aristotelian concepts of essence, act and purpose. The analysis focuses on Aristotle's Metaphysics and approaches a germinal connection between Wesen, An-sich, ousia, dynamis.Chapter Il concems the recollection (sich erinnert) of Being in Essence, that is, switching to a different Ievel of logical argumentation, its connection on one side with Platonic anamnesis, on the other one with the Aristotelian ti en einai. Both anà and en refer to a past that is not truly such: it has no-time significance but clearly a logical-metaphysical one. Logical development is not made up of continuity but rather of breaks and always-new demotions; it recalls some famous words Socrates says to Meno: "And isn't finding knowledge within oneself recollection?" (Meno, 85e-86a). Chapter III, in a direct link with the previous ones, thematizes the role of Reflexion as that immanent process of Essence, rethinking the complex balance of Being and Essence as, respectively, proteron pros hemas and proteron te physei, in turn corresponding to the Aristotelian formulas ti esti and ti en einai. Chapter IV, which takes crosswise the themes of the previous chapters, deals with the problem of Wirklichkeit at the end of the Doctrine of Essence, interpreting it in its twofold meaning of energeia and entelecheia. Despite Hegel, in his Lectures on the history of philosophy, apparently considers entelecheia as the most proper determination of energeia, he actually reveals two distinct senses, which correspond to different ranges of use. Wirklichkeit is then determined both as effectuality and as the determinacy of purpose. If, on the one band, Hegel accomplishes a great ontological building, on the other band he grounds an effectual reality that is only possible, still to submit to the scrutiny of the Subject, Concept, and Idea
Scopo del presente lavoro di ricerca è fondare la filiazione tra Wesen hegeliano e ti en einai aristotelico da un punto di vista non meramente lessicale, tentando principalmente la lettura di alcuni momenti chiave della Scienza della logica al filtro delle Lezioni sulla storia della filosofia dedicate ad Aristotele. Entrambi i significanti, tanto il Wesen quanto il ti en einai, mettono infatti in gioco un senso di passato, ma passato fuori dal tempo, che è esso stesso teoretico e speculativo. La distinzione della logica oggettiva in logica dell’essere e logica dell’essenza è un calco aristotelico. La vera scienza, la scienza cioè che va in profondità, cerca oltre l’essere (to on) e, trovatane l’essenza (ti en einai) ne fa il suo oggetto. Il cammino che conduce dall’essere all’essenza, o meglio che dall’essere svela l’essenza nella Scienza della logica pensa al massimo grado questa verità. Crediamo che la dimostrazione di una simile filiazione tra i due termini abbia un duplice merito: anzitutto, quello di chiarificare alcuni momenti estremamente importanti della Dottrina dell’essenza disambiguando, nel farlo, alcune espressioni o termini di cui lo Stagirita ha fatto largo uso cadendo spesso nella sinonimia (tra tutti essenza, atto, fine e forma); dall’altro, quello di leggere in modo corretto l’imperfetto en della formula aristotelica – un imperfetto che non può non essere metafisico e riguardare, cioè, ciò che è necessario, immutabile, fuori dal tempo proprio in quanto ciò che più di tutto occorre al tempo, e che perciò stesso lo legittima. Il lavoro si articola in quattro capitoli, che corrispondono a quattro ben distinti momenti di indagine: Il primo capitolo, dopo alcune considerazioni di carattere metodologico, offre una prima generale interpretazione dell’essenza come dynamis, imperniando il parallelo sui concetti aristotelici di essenza, atto e fine. L’analisi è condotta principalmente sul testo della Metafisica. Si approccia una germinale connessione tra Wesen, An-sich, ousia, dynamis. Il secondo capitolo ripensa il sich erinnert dell’essere nell’essenza, vale a dire il passaggio a un diverso livello di argomentazione logica, a partire dal suo legame da un lato con l’anamnesis platonica, dall’altro col ti en einai aristotelico. Sia l’anà che l’en alludono infatti ad un passato che non è veramente tale, che non ha valenza temporale ma chiaramente logico-metafisica. E il procedimento logico, fatto non di continuità ma piuttosto di rotture e di sempre nuove retrocessioni, sembrerebbe richiamare proprio una certa frase di Socrate a Menone: “[m]a ricavar da sé, in sé, la propria scienza, non è appunto ricordare?” (Menone, 85e-86a). Il terzo capitolo, in diretta connessione con il precedente, problematizza il ruolo della Reflexion come processualità immanente dell’essenza, ripensando il complesso equilibrio di essere ed essenza come, rispettivamente, proteron pros hemas e proteron te physei, a sua volta corrispondenti alle espressioni aristoteliche ti esti e ti en einai.Il quarto capitolo, che riprende in modo incrociato le tematiche dei capitoli precedenti, affronta il problema della Wirklichkeit a chiusura della Dottrina dell’essenza, interpretandola nel suo duplice senso di energeia e entelecheia. Malgrado Hegel, nelle Lezioni sulla storia della filosofia, consideri apparentemente l’entelecheia come “la specificazione più propria” dell’energeia, ne emergono due sensi distinti e non propriamente sovrapponibili. La Wirklichkeit si determina quindi tanto come effettualità, quanto come finale determinazione del fine. Se, da un lato, Hegel porta qui a compimento una grandiosa trattazione di ontologia, dall’altro apre le porte all’interpretazione di un reale solo possibile, da sottoporre ancora al vaglio del Soggetto e dell’Idea

Whether Aristotle wrote the treatises of Metaphysics with different conceptions of the science of Being in mind has long puzzled scholars. The particular question that causes them unease is whether Aristotle's enterprise in establishing the science of Being through the several treatises of Metaphysics is marked by a general science of Being, studying all departments of Being whatsoever (metaphysica generalis), or whether his investigation of this science reflects an attitude towards a special metaphysics (metaphysica specialis) seeking knowledge of a special department of Being, in this case, God, and therefore should be regarded as a science that is eminently theological. In this thesis, I aim to show that Aristotle's enterprise in Metaphysics does not necessarily hinder reconciliation between the universal and the theological dimensions of the science of Being and that although Aristotle's conception of the science of Being is eminently theological it does not conflict with its also being universal. Furthermore, I aim to show that had the conception of the science of Being in Aristotle's mind not been theological, it would not be universal either.

Thesis advisor: Marina McCoy
In Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, the project of developing virtue and of being virtuous is always realized in one's immediate, particular circumstances. Given that perception is the faculty that gains access to the particular, Aristotle seems to afford perception a central role in ethical life. Yet Aristotle does not provide an account of ethical perception: he does not explain how the perceptual faculty is able grasp ethically relevant facts and how the perceptual capacity can do so well, nor does he explain the manner in which perception influences ethical decisions and actions. It is the project of this dissertation to provide such accounts. There are two main difficulties in the notion of ethical perception in Aristotle's thought: first, perception appears ill-suited to ethical life because the objects of perception are always perceived with respect to the individual's subjective condition--her desires, fears, etc. The information relayed by perception is always relative to the perceiver, i.e. merely the apparent good. Second, virtue is the excellence of the rational soul, while perception is a faculty shared by non-rational animals. It appears, then, that perception must be limited to playing an instrumental role in ethical reasoning and action. This dissertation addresses these difficulties by developing an account of uniquely human perception that is influenced and informed by the intellectual element of the soul. I argue that the project of ethical development, for Aristotle, is the project of integrating one's perceptual faculty with the intellectual capacity, such that one's perception transcends the natural relativity to the perceiver and gains access to the true good as it emerges in one's particular situation
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013
Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: Philosophy

How to become morally virtuous? Among the students of Aristotle, it is often assumed that the philosopher does not have a fully worked-out theoretical answer to this question. Some interpreters (e.g. Burnyeat 1980, most recently Curzer 2012) have, however, recognised that Aristotle may have a comprehensive theory of moral development. However, even those interpreters have made only scarce attempts to study Aristotle’s theory in connection with the questions about his moral psychology. Unlike Aristotle’s theory of moral development as such, several of those questions are among the most debated issues in current Aristotle scholarship - for example, whether we need reason to identify good actions or whether habituated non-rational affects suffice; what makes us responsible for our actions, and how the philosopher conceives the relationship between phronesis and moral motivation. In my thesis, I aim at connecting these important questions with Aristotle’s theory of moral development. I hope to show that this approach will yield a picture on which Aristotle’s theory is divisible into two steps that one has to choose to take in order to become morally virtuous. I argue first that identifying good ends, and actions, requires reason. In order to become morally responsible, a person has thus to develop a rational ability to identify good actions. I show that Aristotle’s term for such ability is synesis. The first step to virtue, I conclude, is to use this ability well, to choose to become virtuous and habituate one’s character into acting well. The second step is to acquire phronesis, understanding why good actions are good, to complement a habituated character. Developing of phronesis requires both considerable experience in acting well and philosophical teaching about ethics, but it is necessary for moral virtue. Although a finely-habituated person is invulnerable to akrasia with regard to pleasures even if he did not have phronesis, Aristotle allows, I show, that he might still be prone to impetuous akrasia, whereas phronimos could avoid akratic behaviour in any situation.

In this work I reconstruct the physical and mental descriptions of perception in Aristotle. I propose to consider the thesis that αἴσθησις is a μεσότης (DA II 11) as a description of the physiological aspect of perception, meaning that perceiving is a physical act by which the sensory apparatus homeostatically counterbalances, and thence measures, the incoming affection produced by external perceptible objects. The proposal is based on a revision of the semantics of the word mesotês in Plato, Aristotle and later Greek mathematicians (mostly Nicomachus of Gerasa). I show how this interpretation fits the text, and how it solves problems that afflict the rival interpretations. I further develop a ‘non-dephysiologizing’ spiritualist reading of the additional description of perception as reception of forms without the matter (DA II 12). I show that Aristotle uses the expression ‘forms without matter’ to describe actually abstracted items in one’s mind rather than the way in which the form are received. In opposition to forms-in-matter, such items are causally powerless and metaphysically sterile: an F-without-matter somewhat determines the subject it is in (one’s mind content F) without qualifying or identifying it as an F-subject. Thus, we have a second ‘mental’ description of perception. Further parts of the thesis are devoted to settle interpretive questions raised by controversial statements about perception found in De Anima II 5 and III 2, and to discuss the question of how the mental and physiological descriptions of perception Aristotle offers are related. My conclusion is that Aristotle’s views combines a form of quasi-dualist vitalism about powers (the faculty of perception, and more generally the soul, are not just irreducible to matter, but also primitive and non-supervenient) which is nonetheless compatible with hylomorphism, and a form of epiphenomenalism (and thence the ‘bottom-up’ determination typical of modern supervenience) with regard to perceptual events (i.e., the activity of perceiving).

The dissertation investigates Heidegger‘s thinking of being in terms of its relation to the philosophy of Aristotle. Whereas Heidegger‘s texts committed to reconstructing Aristotle‘s philosophy were released and started being translated to other languages relatively recently, the German‘s thinking has so far been rather poorly understood both in Lithuania and in the rest of the world. The Heideggerian phenomenological-hermeneutical exegesis of Aristotle‘s texts is apparently essential not only to the project of Being and Time but also to the thought developed after „the Turn“. When the thinking of the philosopher of the Black Forest is viewed in the background of interpreting Aristotle‘s philosophy, one can also better understand its historic(al) dimension, its relation to the pre-modern (ancient and medieval-Christian), modern and post-modern paradigms. The dissertation defends the thesis that the philosophy of Heidegger as a whole is a double move of destructuring and more primordially restructuring the philosophy of Aristotle (and – together – the Cartesian philosophy that conceptually as well as historically is dependent on Greek ontology). This move is performed by construing the basic concepts of Aristotle in terms of the twofold of being and entity which is enabled by the Christian experience of creatio ex nihilo. Furthermore, the construction of the philosophy of Aristotle in terms of the ontological difference is also a critique of modern and post-moderns paradigms... [to full text]
Disertacijoje tiriamas Heideggerio būties mąstymas jo santykio su Aristotelio filosofija požiūriu. Kadangi Heideggerio tekstai, skirti Aristotelio filosofijos rekonstrukcijai, buvo išleisti ir pradėti versti į kitas kalbas palyginti neseniai, šiuo požiūriu vokiečio mąstymas kol kas gan menkai suprastas ne tik Lietuvoje, bet ir likusiame pasaulyje. Haidegeriškoji fenomenologinė-hermeneutinė Aristotelio tekstų egzegezė, regis, ne tik esminga Būties ir laiko projektui, bet ir po „posūkio“ skleidžiamai minčiai. Žvelgiant į Juodosios Girios filosofo mąstymą Aristotelio filosofijos aiškinimo fone, galima geriau suprasti ir Heideggerio filosofijos istorinį matmenį, jos santykį su ikimoderniąja (antikine ir viduramžiškąja-krikščioniškąja), moderniąja ir postmoderniąja paradigmomis. Disertacijoje ginama tezė, jog Heideggerio filosofija kaip visuma yra dvigubas Aristotelio filosofijos (ir sykiu – nuo graikiškosios ontologijos konceptualiai ir istoriškai priklausomos karteziškosios filosofijos) išardymo ir pirmapradiškesnio atkūrimo judesys. Šis judesys atliekamas Aristotelio pamatines sąvokas aiškinant būties ir esinio dvisklaidos požiūriu, kurį leidžia krikščioniškoji creatio ex nihilo patirtis. Be to, Aristotelio filosofijos aiškinimas ontologinio skirtumo požiūriu yra ir moderniosios bei postmoderniosios paradigmų kritika, nes jos istoriškai ir konceptualiai siejamos su graikų ontologijoje taip pat glūdinčia būties užmarštimi kaip neautentiška šios ontologijos išsklaidos galimybe. ... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]

Disertacijoje tiriamas Heideggerio būties mąstymas jo santykio su Aristotelio filosofija požiūriu. Kadangi Heideggerio tekstai, skirti Aristotelio filosofijos rekonstrukcijai, buvo išleisti ir pradėti versti į kitas kalbas palyginti neseniai, šiuo požiūriu vokiečio mąstymas kol kas gan menkai suprastas ne tik Lietuvoje, bet ir likusiame pasaulyje. Haidegeriškoji fenomenologinė-hermeneutinė Aristotelio tekstų egzegezė, regis, ne tik esminga "Būties ir laiko" projektui, bet ir po „posūkio“ skleidžiamai minčiai. Žvelgiant į Juodosios Girios filosofo mąstymą Aristotelio filosofijos aiškinimo fone, galima geriau suprasti ir Heideggerio filosofijos istorinį matmenį, jos santykį su ikimoderniąja (antikine ir viduramžiškąja-krikščioniškąja), moderniąja ir postmoderniąja paradigmomis. Disertacijoje ginama tezė, jog Heideggerio filosofija kaip visuma yra dvigubas Aristotelio filosofijos (ir sykiu – nuo graikiškosios ontologijos konceptualiai ir istoriškai priklausomos karteziškosios filosofijos) išardymo ir pirmapradiškesnio atkūrimo judesys. Šis judesys atliekamas Aristotelio pamatines sąvokas aiškinant būties ir esinio dvisklaidos požiūriu, kurį leidžia krikščioniškoji creatio ex nihilo patirtis. Be to, Aristotelio filosofijos aiškinimas ontologinio skirtumo požiūriu yra ir moderniosios bei postmoderniosios paradigmų kritika, nes jos istoriškai ir konceptualiai siejamos su graikų ontologijoje taip pat glūdinčia būties užmarštimi kaip neautentiška šios ontologijos išsklaidos galimybe... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]
The dissertation investigates Heidegger‘s thinking of being in terms of its relation to the philosophy of Aristotle. Whereas Heidegger‘s texts committed to reconstructing Aristotle‘s philosophy were released and started being translated to other languages relatively recently, the German‘s thinking has so far been rather poorly understood both in Lithuania and in the rest of the world. The Heideggerian phenomenological-hermeneutical exegesis of Aristotle‘s texts is apparently essential not only to the project of 'Being and Time' but also to the thought developed after 'the Turn'. When the thinking of the philosopher of the Black Forest is viewed in the background of interpreting Aristotle‘s philosophy, one can also better understand its historic(al) dimension, its relation to the pre-modern (ancient and medieval-Christian), modern and post-modern paradigms. The dissertation defends the thesis that the philosophy of Heidegger as a whole is a double move of destructuring and more primordially restructuring the philosophy of Aristotle (and – together – the Cartesian philosophy that conceptually as well as historically is dependent on Greek ontology). This move is performed by construing the basic concepts of Aristotle in terms of the twofold of being and entity which is enabled by the Christian experience of creatio ex nihilo. Furthermore, the construction of the philosophy of Aristotle in terms of the ontological difference is also a critique of modern and post-moderns... [to full text]

This thesis attempts to explain Aristotle's conception of the self-mover (introduced in Physics VIII. 4-6) by analysing, in particular, the relationship between the locomotive faculty of the soul and the sumphuton pneuma. Aristotle's theory of self-motion calls for resolutions to three major problems: (a) how is self-motion to be explained without denying the existence of the first mover, i.e. the ultimate cause of the motions of all sublunary beings? (b) how is the self-motion of the living being different from the natural motion of the non-living being? and (c) what is the relationship between the unmoved moving part and the moved part of the self-mover (identified as the soul and the body)? Chapter I discusses (i) some potential problems that Aristotle faces in maintaining the theory of self-motion as a part of his overall theory of natural change, (ii) the characteristics and the relationships of the internal parts of the self-mover, and (iii) the reason for identifying the parts with the soul and the body. Chapter II turns to examine modem views on Aristotle's conception of the soul-body relationship, focusing on the functionalist interpretation of it as entailing compositional plasticity, viz. the view that the same psychological state may be realised by several different material states. Chapter III examines what psychological capacities are necessary for the arousal of animal locomotion and what their interrelationships are, whereas Chapter IV argues against Nussbaum's claim that Aristotle maintains that phantasia is an absolutely necessary capacity for an animal to arouse locomotion. Chapter V analyses the locomotive faculty and its relationship with the sumphuton pneuma. On the basis of this examination, this thesis ascribes to Aristotle the following claims: (al) that all natural beings have natures for initiating their own motions, which cannot be merely brought about by the external mover, (bl ) that self-motion is differentiated from natural motion in that, although both depend on external conditions, the former, unlike the latter, also depends on the internal condition of the mover, and (CI) that psychological capacities can be realised only in the pneuma and in nothing else.

My thesis is an exposition and defence of Aristotle's philosophy of mathematics. The first part of my thesis is an exposition of Aristotle's cryptic and challenging view on mathematics and is based on remarks scattered all over the corpus aristotelicum. The thesis' central focus is on Aristotle's view on numbers rather than on geometrical figures. In particular, number is understood as a countable plurality and is always a number of something. I show that as a consequence the related concept of counting is based on units. In the second part of my thesis, I verify Aristotle's view on number by applying it to his account of time. Time presents itself as a perfect test case for this project because Aristotle defines time as a kind of number but also considers it as a continuum. Since numbers and continuous things are mutually exclusive this observation seems to lead to an apparent contradiction. I show why a contradiction does not arise when we understand Aristotle properly. In the third part, I argue that the ontological status of mathematical objects, dubbed as materially [hulekos, ÍlekÀc] by Aristotle, can only be defended as an alternative to Platonism if mathematical objects exist potentially enmattered in physical objects. In the fourth part, I compare Aristotle's and Plato's views on how we obtain knowledge of mathematical objects. The fifth part is an extension of my comparison between Aristotle's and Plato's epistemological views to their respective ontological views regarding mathematics. In the last part of my thesis I bring Frege's view on numbers into play and engage with Plato, Aristotle and Frege equally while exploring their ontological commitments to mathematical objects. Specifically, I argue that Frege should not be mistaken for a historical Platonist and that we find surprisingly many similarities between Frege and Aristotle. After having acknowledged commonalities between Aristotle and Frege, I turn to the most significant differences in their views. Finally, I defend Aristotle's abstractionism in mathematics against Frege's counting block argument. This whole project sheds more light on Aristotle's view on mathematical objects and explains why it remains an attractive view in the philosophy of mathematics.

I have attempted a reading of Aristotle in terms of mimesis, ethos, mythos, lexis, hamartia, anagnorisis, peripeteia, catharsis and anamnesis - as an existential “being there” (Dasein) of the characters’ freedom and actual historicity - in three of my plays in which I performed or witnessed in productions in England, Wales, three Scandinavian countries, the U.S. and South Africa. I have analysed other Southern African “womanist” performative drama and feminist theatre. I assume with the ancient Greeks that in serious theatre there is theoria, an educated, discursive looking, which involves a dialectics of logos in dianoia intertwined in the mythos – ethical truth in the discourse of the plot. Whilst aesthetics cannot be reduced to psychobiography, creative writing is motivated in part by the author’s and the dramatic subjects’ psychoanalytically understood personal and political unconscious placed in the ethos – the character on the stage. The aesthetics of tragedy relate to both peripeteia (reversals) and anagnorisis (recognition of responsibility) which occur within an arc of development, crisis and denouement of the vicissitudes of purported wisdom in understanding how performative drama and critical theatre have been presented in what has become known as The Struggle in a post-apartheid South Africa and post-colonial Zimbabwe by comparison with historical conditions in South America, India, even China. The values of nous, phronesis and sophia, intuitive, practical and interpretative wisdom are connected to the Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics with which the tragic-comic hero and his Other are imbued or violate. The post-structuralist aesthetic as developed in the literary theory of the twentieth century is essentially the interaction of synchronic and diachronic language emerging from the signifiance and the semiosis of the chora (the feminine or maternal unconscious) within the de-familarisation techniques of Russian and Czech Formalism. This provides a creative and meaningful limit to a consciousness of being-white and beingblack- in-the-world against disempowering Nothingness or perceived Otherness threatening moral beings. Nothingness and the Other are characterised magically and as witch-craft in oral-cultures which deny the unconscious and resort to paranoia and persecution of Otherness in the subject projected onto the other – the “colonial personality”. Shades of Brown has been re-written as Jannie Veldsman – A Film 8 Scenario and I have incorporated into a revised The Cape Orchard a retrospective anticipation of the coming of the new South Africa. I reflect on what tragic drama on the stage and in real life in South Africa means now that the new South Africa is over its honeymoon period and faces serious problems of failed governance. Within the dialectic of an enlightened rabbinical morality of Hillel the Elder (“What is hateful to you do not do to others….” and “If I am not for myself who will be for me…?”) and Kant’s categorical imperative of human beings as a priori ends, I follow the fortunes of an old Jewish veteran of The Struggle, dating back to the Defiance Campaign of 1952/3. Fugard’s work is exemplary in fostering a sense of Sartre’s Nothingness and nihilation which “haunts” Being and is the space of undecidability in relation to my condition of freedom allowing the transcendence of Being. Being asserts reparation and redemption in the face of the depressive and paranoid subject/object split in the subject’s being-in-the-world. Plays ideally submerge this existentialist, psychoanalytic and Aristotelian dramaturgy in the form of Kierkegaard’s faith and Nietzsche’s will which are part of the Encompassing in Karl Jasper’s metaphysics - the residue of a Judaeo-Christian ethics facing the anomie and aporia of the postmodern. The new South Africa was only ostensibly built on Greek and Judaeo- Christian secular ethics – “truth and reconciliation”. It inherited state, revolutionary and criminal violence, as well as a sophisticated economic infrastructure, masspoverty and a segregated educational, social and welfare system which in the milieu of ANC incompetence and corruption have for the very poor got worse but to the benefit of a new African oligarchy, the beneficiaries of a dysfunctional affirmative action policy. What is to be done? Irigaray’s striking metaphor “the speculum of the Other woman” suggests that we are reflected by the instrument we use for investigating what may be Other to us: “we” are westerners trying to live in Africa. “We” are Other – not as autochthonous as the African majority. But the autochthonous can also behave as Other and may even fail to recognise the Other in themselves. Franz Fanon’s “colonial personality”, like ex-president Thabo Mbeki, misunderstands the colonial Other in himself which, disastrously, he projects and attacks in the imaginary and persecutory Other, only to suffer the return of the Real, as do the dramatic fictions Van Tonder in Shades of Brown, Dianne Cupido in The Cape Orchard and Harry Grossman the old man’s son in The Zulu and the Zeide (inspired by a short story by Dan Jacobson). 9 The Russian and Czech Formalists and Structuralists show us how to foreground the Real through techniques of de-familiarisation which can be applied to modernist and post-modernist “womanist” performance drama and feminist theatre. Defamilarisation, especially in an Africa struggling between failed and successful colonialism and often ruled by more or less corrupt elites, sensitizes us to a moral nihilism which characterises the failed African state - described by Conrad as a “heart of darkness” transcended in aletheia – being oneself in the self-showing light of one’s ethos operating through a personal and political unconscious mystified in the rhetoric of oral-cultures. Playwrights such as Yael Farber, Fraser Grace, Aletta Bezuidenhout and Fatima Dike express a semiosis of the unconscious and the signifiance and “absurdity” of logos suggesting that all is not lost in post-apartheid Southern Africa as regards human values, whilst struggling with the political correctness demanded in The Struggle. A partially successful colonialism in parts of Africa could within a British education system, produce a Wole Soyinka who transcends the propaganda of agit-prop by showing the parabolic arc of tragedy afflicted with peripeteia. The weight of African backwardness is not only the negative heritage of colonialism and slavery but Africa’s immersion in traditional partially modernised, but still patriarchal, often tribally and religiously split oral-cultures. These enable the colonial personality to unconsciously or opportunistically exploit his paranoiac sense of his victimage at the expense of the writing-cultures of development which entail anamnesis and the redemption through anagnorisis.

This dissertation consists of an interpretation of Aristotle’s treatment of wanting, choice and moral responsibility that focuses on action as expressive of emotion and character. It culminates in Aristotelian definitions of: what it is to act virtuously, what it is to act at all, what a virtue is, and what it is for a human being to flourish. Chapter II consists of a detailed reading of Aristotle’s EN III.2-3 analysis of prohairesis (choice, principle) and an interpretation of the ‘practical syllogism’ (MA 7, EN VII.3). It first argues that and explains how prohairesis is thoughtful wanting (boulēsis) in EN III.4 according to which what is thoughtfully wanted is what appears fine and pleasant. It then relates this definition to a distinction between what is pleasant merely because of one’s personality and what is ‘truly’ pleasant to be found in EN X.5. It thereby argues that thoughtful wanting is constituted by emotions, understood as conative states through which ways of acting thought right (wrong) appear pleasant (unpleasant) in imagination. Chapter IV argues that EN III.5 is centred on an analysis of ethical imputation that builds upon the treatment of coerced doing and doing infected by ignorance in EN III.1. Challenging the prevailing ‘ignorance of principle’ – ‘ignorance of fact’ interpretation, it develops and defends a reading according to which culpable (non-culpable) ignorance is ignorance that indicates (does not indicate) failure to apprehend the situation as virtue requires. It thereby argues that according to our practices of ethical imputation as analysed by Aristotle, acting as virtue requires without emoting as virtue requires is impossible.

Thesis advisor: Robert C. Bartlett
This thesis seeks to explain why Aristotle considers piety a necessary component of the best regime that he presents in book 7 of the Politics. It argues that Aristotle includes piety in the best regime because the pious belief in divine providence, that is, divine reward for virtuous human beings and punishment for vicious human beings, provides an essential justification for moral virtue that enables the best regime to habituate its citizens in the practice of moral virtue without compelling them to deny their natural longing for happiness. Only this pious conception of divine providence enables the citizens of the best regime to be happy as they cope with the demands of moral virtue and citizenship
Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2019
Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: Political Science

This thesis brings to light evidence for the circulation and first-hand reception of Aristotle's Poetics in sixteenth-century England. Though the Poetics upended literary thinking on the Continent in the period, it has long been considered either unavailable in England, linguistically inaccessible to the Greekless English, or thoroughly mediated for English readers by Italian criticism. This thesis revisits the evidentiary basis for each of these claims in turn. A survey of surviving English booklists and library catalogues, set against the work's comprehensive sixteenth-century print-history, demonstrates that the Poetics was owned by and readily accessible to interested readers; two appendices list verifiable and probable owners of the Poetics respectively. Detailed philological analysis of passages from Sir Philip Sidney’s Defence of Poesie proves that he translated directly from the Greek; his and his contemporaries' reading methods indicate the text circulated bilingually as standard. Nor was Sidney’s polyglot access unusual in literary circles: re-examination of the history of Greek education in sixteenth-century England indicates that Greek literacy was higher and more widespread than traditional histories of scholarship have allowed. On the question of mediation, a critical historiography makes clear that the inherited assumption of English reliance on Italian intermediaries for classical criticism has drifted far from the primary evidence. Under these reconstituted historical conditions, some of the outstanding episodes in the sixteenth-century English reception of the Poetics from John Cheke and Roger Ascham in the 1540s to Sidney and John Harington in the 1580s and 1590s are reconsidered as articulate evidence of reading, thinking about, and responding to Aristotle's defining contribution to Renaissance literary thought.