Aristotle On Matter Form And Moving Causes

Download or read book Aristotle on Matter, Form, and Moving Causes written by Devin Henry and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-12-05 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines Aristotle's doctrine of hylomorphism and its importance for understanding the process by which substances come into being.

Download or read book Aristotle on Matter, Form, and Moving Causes written by Devin Henry and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines an important area of Aristotle's philosophy: the generation of substances. While other changes presuppose the existence of a substance (Socrates grows taller), substantial generation results in something genuinely new that did not exist before (Socrates himself). The central argument of this book is that Aristotle defends a 'hylomorphic' model of substantial generation. In its most complete formulation, this model says that substantial generation involves three principles: (1) matter, which is the subject from which the change proceeds; (2) form, which is the end towards which the process advances; and (3) an efficient cause, which directs the process towards that form. By examining the development of this model across Aristotle's works, Devin Henry seeks to deepen our grasp on how the doctrine of hylomorphism - understood as a blueprint for thinking about the world - informs our understanding of the process by which new substances come into being.--

Download or read book Making Objects and Events written by Simon J. Evnine and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-07-07 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Simon J. Evnine explores the view (which he calls amorphic hylomorphism) that some objects have matter from which they are distinct but that this distinctness is not due to the existence of anything like a form. He draws on Aristotle's insight that such objects must be understood in terms of an account that links what they are essentially with how they come to exist and what their functions are (the coincidence of formal, final, and efficient causes). Artifacts are the most prominent kind of objects where these three features coincide, and Evnine develops a detailed account of the existence and identity conditions of artifacts, and the origins of their functions, in terms of how they come into existence. This process is, in general terms, that they are made out of their initial matter by an agent acting with the intention to make an object of the given kind. Evnine extends the account to organisms, where evolution accomplishes what is effected by intentional making in the case of artifacts, and to actions, which are seen as artifactual events.

Download or read book Aristotle's Metaphysics Lambda written by Michael Frede and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A distinguished group of scholars of ancient philosophy here presents a systematic study of the twelfth book of Aristotle's Metaphysics. Lambda, which can be regarded as a self-standing treatise on substance, has been attracting particular attention in recent years, and was chosen as the focusof the fourteenth Symposium Aristotelicum, from which this volume derives. At the Symposium, each of Lambda's ten chapters was taken in turn as the subject of a session at which a specially written paper was read to and discussed by the assembled symposiasts. (The ninth chapter commanded twosessions by dint of its particular difficulty.) The papers have been revised in the light of discussion, and are now offered to a wider audience as a discursive commentary on points of particular philosophical interest covering all of Lambda. Michael Frede's extensive Introduction aims to give abroader view of Lambda as a whole and the problems it raises, and thus to provide the context for the discussion of each of the chapters. This volume will be a resource of great value and interest for anyone working on ancient metaphysics and theology.

Download or read book Aristotle on Teleology written by Monte Ransome Johnson and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 2005-11-03 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Monte Johnson examines one of the most controversial aspects of Aristiotle's natural philosophy: his teleology. Is teleology about causation or explanation? Does it exclude or obviate mechanism, determinism, or materialism? Is it focused on the good of individual organisms, or is god or man the ultimate end of all processes and entities? Is teleology restricted to living things, or does it apply to the cosmos as a whole? Does it identify objectively existent causes in the world, or is it merely a heuristic for our understanding of other causal processes? Johnson argues that Aristotle's aporetic approach drives a middle course between these traditional oppositions, and avoids the dilemma, frequently urged against teleology, between backwards causation and anthropomorphism. Although these issues have been debated with extraordinary depth by Aristotle scholars, and touched upon by many in the wider philosophical and scientific community as well, there has been no comprehensive historical treatment of the issue. Aristotle is commonly considered the inventor of teleology, although the precise term originated in the eighteenth century. But if teleology means the use of ends and goals in natural science, then Aristotle was rather a critical innovator of teleological explanation. Teleological notions were widespread among his predecessors, but Aristotle rejected their conception of extrinsic causes such as mind or god as the primary causes for natural things. Aristotle's radical alternative was to assert nature itself as an internal principle of change and an end, and his teleological explanations focus on the intrinsic ends of natural substances - those ends that benefit the natural thing itself. Aristotle's use of ends was subsequently conflated with incompatible 'teleological' notions, including proofs for the existence of a providential or designer god, vitalism and animism, opposition to mechanism and non-teleological causation, and anthropocentrism. Johnson addresses these misconceptions through an elaboration of Aristotle's methodological statements, as well as an examination of the explanations actually offered in the scientific works.

Download or read book Aristotle's Generation of Animals written by Andrea Falcon and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-11 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Generation of Animals is one of Aristotle's most mature, sophisticated, and carefully crafted scientific writings. His overall goal is to provide a comprehensive and systematic account of how animals reproduce, including a study of their reproductive organs, what we would call fertilization, embryogenesis, and organogenesis. In this book, international experts present thirteen original essays providing a philosophically and historically informed introduction to this important work. They shed light on the unity and structure of the Generation of Animals, the main theses that Aristotle defends in the work, and the method of inquiry he adopts. They also open up new avenues of exploration of this difficult and still largely unexplored work. The volume will be essential for scholars and students of ancient philosophy as well as of the history and philosophy of science.

Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus written by Lloyd P. Gerson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1996-08-13 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each volume of this series of companions to major philosophers contains specially commissioned essays by an international team of scholars, together with a substantial bibliography, and will serve as a reference work for students and non-specialists. One aim of the series is to dispel the intimidation such readers often feel when faced with the work of a difficult and challenging thinker. Plotinus was the greatest philosopher in the 700-year period between Aristotle and Augustine. He thought of himself as a disciple of Plato, but in his efforts to defend Platonism against Aristotelians, Stoics, and others, he actually produced a reinvigorated version of Platonism that later came to be known as 'Neoplatonism'. In this volume, sixteen leading scholars introduce and explain the many facets of Plotinus' complex system. They place Plotinus in the history of ancient philosophy while showing that he was a founder of medieval philosophy.