Aristotle’s Hylomorphism: The Causal-Explanatory Model

There are several innocuous or trivial ways in which to explicate Aristotle’s hylomorphism. For example: objects (or kinds of object) are characterisable in terms of matter and form; or analysable into matter and form; or understood on the basis of matter and form. Serious problems arise when we seek to specify the sorts of relation holding among the different contributors to the hylomorphic picture. Here are some central general questions:   a. What types of relation are most suitable for each n-tuple of contributors (e.g., identity, part-whole, or some other relation)?   b. What direction and modal profile should each relation have (e.g., is form prior to matter and the compound, or is the compound prior to matter and form; is matter essentially or contingently related to form)?   In addressing such questions we find that the types, directions, or modal character of the relations that we or Aristotle may favour are often in tension with each other, or clearly lead to inconsistencies. The paper focuses on the Modal Question (M), also known as ‘Ackrill’s problem’: is form essentially or contingently related to matter? I outline a hylomorphic model, what I label the ‘causal-explanatory’ model (CEM), and show how it can tackle M

Book review: David Bronstein, Aristotle on Knowledge and Learning: The Posterior Analytics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. (pp.xiii-272).

ABSTRACT This is a review of David Bronstein's book "Aristotle on Knowledge and Learning: The Posterior Analytics" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016

The Deflationary Theory of Ontological Dependence

When an entity ontologically depends on another entity, the former ‘presupposes’ or ‘requires’ the latter in some metaphysical sense. This paper defends a novel view, Dependence Deflationism, according to which ontological dependence is what I call an aggregative cluster concept: a concept which can be understood, but not fully analysed, as a ‘weighted total’ of constructive and modal relations. The view has several benefits: it accounts for clear cases of ontological dependence as well as the source of disagreement in controversial ones; it gives a nice story about the evidential relevance of modal, mereological and set-theoretic facts to ontological dependence; and it makes sense of debates over the relation's formal properties. One important upshot of the deflationary account is that questions of ontological dependence are generally less deep and less interesting than usually thought

Posterior analytics II.11, 94b8-26: final cause and demonstration

I present the text at Posterior Analytics (=APo) II.11, 94b8-26, offer a tentative translation, discuss the main construals offered in the literature, and argue for my own interpretation. Some of the general questions I discuss are the following: 1. What is the nature of the explanatory syllogisms offered as examples, especially in the case of the moving and the final cause? Are they scientific demonstrative explanations? In the case of the final cause, are they practical syllogisms? Are they productive? 2. Are we to read into such examples Aristotle’s requirementsfrom APo I.4-6 that demonstrative premisses and conclusions are universal, per se, and necessary? If so, in what way? If such requirements do not apply here, what are the implications for question 1? 3. What, if any, is the advantage of one type of causal explanation over another (e.g., of final over efficient) in cases in which there is causal competition between complementary explanations? Final Cause and Demonstration 2 Manuscrito – Rev. Int. Fil. Campinas, 2019. 4. What is the relation between the thesis of this chapter, especially the section dedicated to the final cause, and the argument of II.8-10? How is essence (the what-it-is) related to causes? How is explanation/demonstration-based definition related to causal explanation in terms of the four causes

Conceptions of truth in Plato's Sophist

The paper seeks to specify how, according to Plato’s Sophist, true statements achieve their being about objects and their saying that ‘what is about such objects is’. Drawing on the 6th definition of the sophist, I argue for a normative-teleological conception of truth in which the best condition of our soul –in its making statements or having mental states– consists in its seeking to attain the telos of truth. Further, on the basis of Plato’s discussion of original and image, his distinction between correct and incorrect image, and the 7th definition, I argue that achieving the telos of truth involves preserving the original’s proportions and appropriate features. The view that Plato’s conception of truth takes statements or mental states to be certain types of image is not ground-breaking. The important contribution of my argument is that it offers a plausible way to understand two recalcitrant claims made by Plato: first, that falsity obtains not only in the region of incorrect images (appearances) but also within correct images (likenesses); second, that some incorrect images are based on knowledge and so could be true

Matter in scientific definitions in aristotle

This chapter distinguishes between the different types of definition discussed in Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics II.10 and argues that only some of them are, strictly speaking, scientific: that is, those that are closely linked to explanatory proofs which latch onto the causes of adefiniendum’s nature. The chapter discusses how these scientific definitions account for different types of entity: processes, artifacts, natural substance kinds, and the essences or forms of substance kinds. It gives a brief clarification of Aristotelian hylomorphism and provides some examples of the concept of matter as understood within hylomorphism. Finally, it examines whether, and if so, how matter may be mentioned in a scientific definition and addresses several problems arising from Aristotle’s overall hylomorphic picture and the role of matter in it