Charlotte Witt

when it is actually heating water; an object is perceptible only when it is actually being 1 perceived-- and so on. But, it is part of the notion of a causal power that it exists whether or not it is active. In order to respond to this challenge Aristotle draws a distinction between two ways of being a power; when it is active the power exists actually; when it is inactive it exists potentially. Contemporary writers have noted that we need a way of understanding powers that includes their present but inactive existence, although Aristotle’s ontological response to this difficulty might seem wrong-headed or unnecessary. One objectionable aspect to his solution is the inherently teleological relationship between being x potentially and being x actually. Second, Aristotle does not draw an ontological distinction between those powers that operate with reason, and those that do not. He does provide different conditions of realization for the two kinds of powers, but those conditions are variants within the same ontology of causal powers. In this regard, Aristotle offers one possible realist framework of causal powers that sees human action on a continuum with the physical sciences rather than as categorically different from them, and therefore requiring an entirely different explanatory framework. It is important to note, however, that Aristotle’s paradigmatic physical science is biology and his framework for understanding natural living beings is teleological. Perhaps a better way to put this is that Aristotle’s understanding of the physical sciences is entirely different from ours, and it is a good question how relevant Aristotle’s unified framework of causal powers is given current conceptions of the physical sciences, and the centrality of physics and chemistry as models of the physical sciences. The common theme that unites both of these aspects of Aristotle’s ontology of causal powers is the central presence of teleology.

Michael Wedin’s Aristotle’s Theory of Substance provides an interpretation of primary substance in Metaphysics Book Z that is compatible with the ontology of the Categories. The incompatibilist position holds that primary substance in the Categories is the concrete, individual substance, like Socrates, whereas the title of primary substance in Metaphysics Z goes to the eidos, the form or the species. Hence, the ontology of the Categories is incompatible with the ontology of Metaphysics Z. One compatibilist strategy argues that the c-substance remains primary substance in Metaphysics Z. Wedin takes another tack. He argues that c-substances are ontologically primary in both texts, and that Metaphysics Z introduces a new kind of priority, explanatory priority, awarded to the form of c-substances. Since c-substances and their forms are prior in different senses, the incompatibility vanishes. Wedin’s claim is stronger than mere compatibilism, however, since what forms explain are basic features of c-substances. Hence, Metaphysics Z is not only compatible with the Categories, “it is a theory about the theory of the Categories”. Wedin argues for what I call strong compatibilism.

Feminist work in the history of philosophy has come of age as an innovative field in the history of philosophy. This volume marks that accomplishment with original essays by leading feminist scholars who ask basic questions: What is distinctive of feminist work in the history of philosophy? Is there a method that is distinctive of feminist historical work? How can women philosophers be meaningfully included in the history of the discipline? Who counts as a philosopher? This collection is a unique collaboration among philosophers from North America and the Nordic Countries, including papers written from both analytic and continental philosophical perspectives and discussing both ancient and modern philosophers. Feminist Reflections on the History of Philosophy will be of interest to historians of philosophy, feminist theorists, women's studies faculty and students, and humanists interested in canon formation and transformation.