Edward Halper

In the first lines of Metaphysics 3, Aristotle argues that any progress in this discipline hinges on carefully working through the problems peculiar to it, the metaphysical aporiai; and he devotes all of book 3 to drawing up these problems. Despite this warning, book 3 and its doublet, book 11.1–2, have received relatively little attention. Many of the problems Aristotle sets out here are not addressed explicitly elsewhere in the Metaphysics, their discussion in book 3 is inconclusive, and most seem today of little intrinsic interest on their own. Book 3 has often been read as a merely historical record of that stage in his development when Aristotle personally struggled with Platonism, other philosophies, or his own earlier philosophy. Since there is no detailed and thorough study of book 3 in the recent literature, Madigan’s contribution is sorely needed and a worthy addition to the Clarendon Aristotle series. Like other volumes in the series, this one includes a literal translation followed by a line by line commentary that aims to explore different construals of Aristotle’s arguments and a glossary. Madigan also provides a few pages of textual notes that, unlike the rest of the book, presuppose some knowledge of Greek. A lengthy introduction does a good job of connecting book 3 to the rest of the Metaphysics. Book 11 receives relatively little attention—three pages in the introduction, six in the commentary. Madigan divides the text by aporia, he works through each argument that falls under each aporia, emphasizing in the process Aristotle’s frequent shifts in focus and assumption; Madigan tries to trace the origin of the various assumptions; and he concludes his discussion of each aporia by explaining where and how Aristotle solves it. Additionally, Madigan groups some of book 3’s aporiai and provides, either for the group or each nongrouped aporia, an introduction and an epilogue that lists the premises mentioned explicitly in each aporia along with a statement of whether or not Aristotle continued to accept each or how his view changed. Madigan counts 124 such premises in the whole of book 3. His conclusion is that “working through the aporiai of book 3 would heighten one’s awareness of the difficulties of the issues, but book 3 does not state in so many words what the ‘knots’ in our thinking are, much less how to untie them”.

ABSTRACT In Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra, Jacob Klein contrasts ancient Greek philosophy's direct engagement with things through arithmetic with the ancient science of numeric calculation, logistic. By chronicling the later development of logistic, by means of increasing symbolization, ultimately into algebra, he argues that logistic has come to displace arithmetic and, thereby, to submerge the ontological issues at the center of Greek thought. This article argues, first, that Klein's target is Ernst Cassirer's notion of number as a “symbolic function”—what Cassirer would later call “symbolic form.” In Substance and Function Cassirer argues that number constitutes a conceptual structure progressively extended by thought so as to include the results of different sorts of calculation (e.g., negative numbers, irrational roots, and infinite numbers) within itself and, thereby, to be a closed system. Drawing upon Dedekind, Cassirer claims that no individual number can be understood apart from the entire conceptual structure. This article argues, second, that Cassirer recognizes, as it were, a different set of things, namely, relations, and that it is possible to engage these “things” directly by recognizing the ontological issues they raise.

IT IS well-known that Plato and Aristotle disagree on the possibility of knowledge of nature. Plato maintains that knowledge, in contrast with belief, is never mistaken, that the objects of knowledge are always the same and never becoming, and that what we sense is always becoming. He concludes that knowledge is possible only of objects that are unchanging and separate from sensibles, i.e., the forms. Aristotle rejects this conclusion and recognizes knowledge of sensibles. Surprisingly, though, he accepts Plato's assumptions. He too maintains that knowledge is not sometimes true and sometimes false, but always true ; he distinguishes the sensibles from the unchanging eternal beings ; and he asserts that the objects of knowledge "always are or are for the most part", and occasionally he even claims that they cannot be otherwise. The problem is, how can Aristotle accept Plato's assumptions about the nature and objects of knowledge and still maintain that knowledge of nature is possible?

Maimonides’ claim, in Guide of the Perplexed I.68, that our intellect, like God’s, becomes one with the object it knows would seem to be at odds with his injunction to his readers to set their “thought to work on the first intelligible” and to “rejoice in what [it] apprehends”. The former passage supposes that we grasp individual essences by themselves, whereas the latter supposes that such essences are known only through their first cause. Since we cannot grasp the first cause, God, we cannot, apparently, grasp anything else or rejoice in it. After briefly sketching the solutions of Aristotle and Avicenna, this paper argues that Maimonides resolves these issues by distinguishing the metaphysical grasp of a single essence from the grasp of its relations - due to God’s will - with other essences and, more specifically, the metaphysical grasp of our own human essence from the grasp of ourselves through our physical and moral relations with the world. Insofar as we know ourselves by knowing everythi...

Drawing principally on the Symposium, this paper argues that humor in Plato’s dialogues serves two serious purposes. First, Plato uses puns and other devices to disarm the reader’s defenses and thereby allow her to consider philosophical ideas that she would otherwise dismiss. Second, insofar as human beings can only be understood through unchanging forms that we fail to attain, our lives are discontinuous and only partly intelligible. Since, though, the discontinuity between expectation and actual occurrence is the basis for humor, Plato can use humor to express who we are as human beings.

The last chapter of Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise (TTP) is a brief for freedom of religion. In our enthusiasm for Spinoza's conclusion it is easy to overlook the blatant contradiction between this thesis and the central claim of the immediately preceding chapter that "right over matters of religion is vested entirely in the sovereign." There Spinoza emphasizes the necessity that there be but one sovereign in the state and the threat that autonomous religious authorities would pose to the authority of this sovereign. This last claim is, in turn, bolstered by his analysis of the deficiencies of the Hebrew state in the chapter before, chapter 18, according to which it was the usurpation of political authority by priests that ultimately undermined the state. In other words, in chapters 18 and 19, Spinoza makes the case for the strict political control of religion only to conclude his treatise by arguing, in chapter 20, that the purpose of the state is, in reality, freedom and that that freedom manifests itself, in part, in freedom of religion. How could this latter not pose exactly the sort of threat to the sovereign and the state that leads Spinoza to insist on the sovereign's absolute control of religion? How can Spinoza insist that religion be both free and controlled by the state? This paper aims to answer this question and, in the process, explains a number of troubling features of the Theological-Political Treatise

Jacob Klein raises two important questions about Aristotle’s account of number: (1) How does the intellect come to grasp a sensible as an intelligible unit? (2) What makes a collection of these intelligible units into one number? His answer to both questions is “abstraction.” First, we abstract (or, better, disregard) a thing’s sensible characteristics to grasp it as a noetic unit. Second, after counting like things, we again disregard their other characteristics and grasp the group as a noetic entity composed of “pure” units. As Klein explains them, Aristotle’s numbers are each “heaps” of counted units; in contrast, each of Plato’s numbers is one. This paper argues that Klein is right to understand a noetic unit existing in the sensible entity, but that his answer to the second question is not consonant with Aristotle’s insistence that Plato cannot account for the unity of a number, whereas he can. Slightly modifying Klein’s analysis, I show that Aristotle’s numbers are each one.

The aim of this paper is to explain how to design and teach a course that meets the special requirements of Freshman Seminar programs by using feature films to examine philosophical themes. Two such courses are discussed. By organizing each course around a theme, the teacher can use the films to illustrate and, sometimes, critique philosophical positions that she elaborates. Discussing the films, the students develop analytical and interpretive skills important for more rigorous philosophy courses as well as for work in other disciplines.

Why should the work of the ancient and the medievals, so far as it relates to nature, still be of interest and an inspiration to us now? The contributions to this enlightening volume explore and uncover contemporary scholarship's debt to the classical and medieval past. Thinking About the Environment synthesizes religious thought and environmental theory to trace a trajectory from Mesopotamian mythology and classical and Hellenistic Greek, through classical Latin writers, to medieval Christian views of the natural world and our relationship with it. The work also offers medieval Arabic and Jewish views on humanity's inseparability from nature. The volume concludes with a study of the breakdown between science and value in contemporary ecological thought. Thinking About the Environment will be a invaluable source book for those seeking to address environmental ethics from a historical perspective.