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Teleology and the CosmosIn Aristotle on teleology, Oxford University Press. 2008.Aristotle’s cosmos consists of natural substances, each with its own proper functions, motions, and ends. To this extent, his cosmos is teleological. But there is no overall or cosmic teleology in a stronger sense, above and beyond the applicability of teleological explanations to each of the natural things. For the universe does not have a proper function, or motions, goods or ends. The stars, elements, plants, animals and humans do, and nature is the principle of motion and the end for each of…Read more
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Teleology and HumansIn Aristotle on teleology, Oxford University Press. 2008.Humans are capable of intentionally pursuing goals that they consciously set for themselves, and thus a different order of teleology applies to them, one which places them in the domain of ethics and politics. Every inquiry, art, and science has a goal, and they can broadly be classified into the productive-practical on the one hand, and the theoretical, on the other. Practical knowledge aims at practical goods by grasping causes for the sake of producing effects, while theoretical knowledge aim…Read more
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Teleology and Organisms ii: Specific ExplanationsIn Aristotle on teleology, Oxford University Press. 2008.Aristotle normally begins a teleological explanation of a living thing with an identification of its goods. The existence of these goods implies certain requirements or “hypothetical necessity”. For example, if a fish is to survive and reproduce, it must be able to acquire food, which requires that it move, and so it must have fins, which in turn require tissues, and these must be composed of a certain combination of the elements. Some features of living things are not necessary for its survival…Read more
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Teleology and Organisms i: General PrinciplesIn Aristotle on teleology, Oxford University Press. 2008.Elements compose organic bodies, including tissues and organs, and in so doing are for the sake of the whole organism of which they are the transformed parts. But the starting point for the explanation of living things is the identification of its functions: nutrition and reproduction for plants, perception and locomotion for animals, and virtue and intelligence for humans. Since the functions of plants are fundamental to all other living things, the vegetative functions are the primary ones in …Read more
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Teleology and ElementsIn Aristotle on teleology, Oxford University Press. 2008.Did Aristotle consider the properties of the elements to be teleologically explicable? According to some commentators, he did not, but considered these to operate according to material, moving, or mechanical causes. According to others, he did, and this is evidence of his commitment to an “overall” or “global” teleology. Both of the positions are wrong. Aristotle did consider each of the elements teleologically explicable, but he considered the beneficiaries of their properties and motions to be…Read more
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Teleological DialecticIn Aristotle on teleology, Oxford University Press. 2008.Aristotle articulates his natural teleology in the context of a dialectical engagement with his predecessors, identifying each of them with a salient causal factor: Empedocles, Democritus, Anaxagoras, and Plato. Aristotle tries to co-opt each of these factors into his naturalistic teleology by an a fortiori argument: to the extent that luck, necessity, intelligence, or art is a cause, nature must even more so be considered a cause. For luck is an incidental cause of that which nature is an intri…Read more
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Teleological NotionsIn Aristotle on teleology, Oxford University Press. 2008.The key term of Aristotle’s teleology is “the cause for the sake of which”. Aristotle discusses in several key texts the fact that this has two different senses: aim and beneficiary. The aim of a knife is cutting, but the beneficiary is the person who does, or orders, the cutting. Aristotle uses this distinction to show how natural things have both aims and are beneficiaries of their functions. He also shows how non-natural things, such as god, can operate as causes for the sake of which, but no…Read more
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Preliminary Study of Aristotle's CausesIn Aristotle on teleology, Oxford University Press. 2008.Aristotle considers nature, art, spontaneity, luck, necessity, and intelligence to be causes, and they fit into the four kinds of cause that he distinguishes throughout works on natural philosophy. The four kinds of cause, e.g. matter, mover, form, end, are not themselves causes, but are classes of causes. The causes can be combined in various ways, and the same thing can be classified as several kinds of cause. Causes play a crucial role in scientific demonstration: the middle term in a syllogi…Read more
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Historical Background to the Interpretation of Aristotle's TeleologyIn Aristotle on teleology, Oxford University Press. 2008.According to the standard history, Aristotelian teleology and final causes were discarded in the scientific revolution in favor of the mechanical philosophy. In fact, the term teleology was invented in the eighteenth century to designate the search for evidence of god in purposes, goals, intelligence, and design manifest in nature. The background natural theology is the adaptation of Aristotelian philosophy by Greek commentators and Neoplatonists, and by Arabic and Latin commentators. But alread…Read more
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IntroductionIn Aristotle on teleology, Oxford University Press. 2008.Teleology is central to Aristotle’s scientific method. He applies teleological explanations to many disciplines, including physics, cosmology, meteorology, theology, biology, zoology, anthropology, political science, and ethics. Although there has been much discussion of the role of teleology with respect to each of these specialized domains, there has been no comprehensive treatment of the issue. But a thoroughgoing investigation can tell us much about Aristotle’s philosophy, about Greek philos…Read more
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388Sources for the Philosophy of Archytas (review)Ancient Philosophy 28 (1): 173-199. 2008.A review of Carl Huffman's new edition of the fragments of Archytas of Tarentum. Praises the extensive commentary on four fragments, but argues that at least two dubious works not included in the edition ("On Law and Justice" and "On Wisdom") deserve further consideration and contain important information for the interpretation of Archytas. Provides a complete translation for the fragments of those works
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2027A new translation and edition of Aristotle's Protrepticus (with critical comments on the fragments) Welcome The Protrepticus was an early work of Aristotle, written while he was still a member of Plato's Academy, but it soon became one of the most famous works in the whole history of philosophy. Unfortunately it was not directly copied in the middle ages and so did not survive in its own manuscript tradition. But substantial fragments of it have been preserved in several works by Iamblichus of C…Read more
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304Aristotle on teleologyOxford University Press. 2008.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 …Read more
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2384Spontaneity, Democritean Causality and FreedomElenchos 30 (1): 5-52. 2009.Critics have alleged that Democritus’ ethical prescriptions (“gnomai”) are incompatible with his physics, since his atomism seems committed to necessity or chance (or an awkward combination of both) as a universal cause of everything, leaving no room for personal responsibility. I argue that Democritus’ critics, both ancient and contemporary, have misunderstood a fundamental concept of his causality: a cause called “spontaneity”, which Democritus evidently considered a necessary (not chance) cau…Read more
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192Isocrates' Antidosis ("Defense against the Exchange") and Aristotle's Protrepticus ("Exhortation to Philosophy") were recovered from oblivion in the late nineteenth century. In this article we demonstrate that the two texts happen to be directly related. Aristotle's Protrepticus was a response, on behalf of the Academy, to Isocrates' criticism of the Academy and its theoretical preoccupations. Contents: I. Introduction: Protrepticus, text and context II. Authentication of the Protrepticus of Ari…Read more
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Aristotle on the Ends and Limits of TeleologyDissertation, University of Toronto (Canada). 2003.Aristotle is commonly considered the inventor of teleology, although the exact term "teleology" originated in the eighteenth century. If teleology means the use of ends and goals in natural science, then Aristotle should be regarded rather as a critical innovator of teleological explanation. Teleological notions were widespread among his predecessors, but Aristotle rejected their conception of extrinsic causes like mind or god as the primary causes for natural things. Aristotle's radical alterna…Read more
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2118The Aristotelian Explanation of the HaloApeiron 42 (4): 325-357. 2009.For an Aristotelian observer, the halo is a puzzling phenomenon since it is apparently sublunary, and yet perfectly circular. This paper studies Aristotle's explanation of the halo in Meteorology III 2-3 as an optical illusion, as opposed to a substantial thing (like a cloud), as was thought by his predecessors and even many successors. Aristotle's explanation follows the method of explanation of the Posterior Analytics for "subordinate" or "mixed" mathematical-physical sciences. The accompanyin…Read more
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631Authenticating Aristotle's ProtrepticusOxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 29 193-294. 2005.Authenticates approximately 500 lines of Aristotle's lost work the Protrepticus (Exhortation to Philosophy) contained in the circa third century AD work by Iamblichus of Chalcis entitled Protrepticus epi philosophian. Includes a complete English translation of the authenticated material.
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1392Nature, spontaneity, and voluntary action in LucretiusIn Daryn Lehoux, A. D. Morrison & Alison Sharrock (eds.), Lucretius: Poetry, Philosophy, Science, Oxford University Press. 2013.In twenty important passages located throughout De rerum natura, Lucretius refers to natural things happening spontaneously (sponte sua; the Greek term is automaton). The most important of these uses include his discussion of the causes of: nature, matter, and the cosmos in general; the generation and adaptation of plants and animals; the formation of images and thoughts; and the behavior of human beings and the development of human culture. In this paper I examine the way spontaneity functions …Read more
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81OusiaSouthwest Philosophy Review 17 (1): 95-101. 2000.I argue against Deborah Nails that Plato, like Aristotle, frequently used the term "ousia" to indicate what is ontologically fundamental, and that he did so throughout all periods of his writing.
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307Was Gassendi an Epicurean?History of Philosophy Quarterly 20 (4). 2003.Pierre Gassendi was a major factor in the revival of Epicureanism in early modern philosophy, not only through his contribution to the restoration and criticism of Epicurean texts, but also by his adaptation of Epicurean ideas in his own philosophy, which was itself influential on such important figures of early modern philosophy as Hobbes, Locke, Newton, and Boyle (to name just a few). Despite his vigorous defense of certain Epicurean ideas and ancient atomism, Gassendi goes to great lengths to…Read more
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399Aristotle’s Empiricism: experience and mechanics in the 4th century BC by Jean De Groot (review)Ancient Philosophy 35 (1): 220-230. 2015.According to a generally held impression, which has coalesced out of centuries of misinterpretation occasioned mostly by misguided charitable commentary, but often by outright hostility to his followers (and occasionally deliberate misrepresentation of his ideas), Aristotle is a teleological (as opposed to “mechanistic”) philosopher, responsible for a “qualitative” (as opposed to quantitative) approach to physics that is thereby inadequately mathematical, whose metaphysical speculations, as abso…Read more
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695Lucretius and the history of scienceIn Stuart Gillespie & Philip R. Hardie (eds.), The Cambridge companion to Lucretius, Cambridge University Press. 2007.An overview of the influence of Lucretius poem On the Nature of Things (De Rerum Natura) on the renaissance and scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, and an examination of its continuing influence over physical atomism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
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54The Discovery of Things by W. R. Mann, and Aristotle in China by R. Wardy (review)Ancient Philosophy 21 (1): 188-198. 2001.A review and comparison of two recent and very different monographs about Aristotle's Categories: W. R. Mann "The Discovery of Things" and Robert Ward's "Aristotle in China".
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