S. Marc Cohen

The central argument in the Euthyphro is the one Socrates advances against the definition of piety as "what all the gods love." The argument turns on establishing that a loved thing (philoumenon) is 1) a loved thing because it is loved (phileitai), not 2) loved because it is a loved thing. I suggest that this claim can be understood and found acceptable if we take "because" to be used equivocally in it. Despite the equivocation, Socrates' argument is valid, showing that Euthyphro cannot offer this definition consistently with his view that the gods have as a reason for loving pious things that they are pious things.

Aristotle takes up the topic of change (or coming-to-be and ceasing-to-be) in both the Physics and De Generatione et Corruptione. He distinguishes between simple coming-to-be (substantial change), as when something comes into existence, and qualified coming-to-be (accidental change), as when an already existing thing alters, or moves, or changes in some other way. But he also maintains a persistence principle: that in every change, whether simple or qualified, there is something that persists throughout the change. I examine the question of whether this principle threatens the viability of the distinction between substantial and accidental change by comparing what Aristotle has to say about it in the Physics with what he says in GC. In the process, I discuss several recent treatments of the topic as well as some conflicting views about the role, if any, of prime matter in Aristotle's account of substantial change.

Aristotle's claim in Metaphysics Z.6 that "each substance is the same as its essence" has long puzzled commentators. For it seems to conflict with two other Aristotelian theses: (1) primary substances are individuals (e.g., Socrates and Callias), and (2) essences are universals (e.g., Man and Horse). Three traditional solutions to this difficulty are considered and rejected. Instead, to make the Z.6 equation consistent with (1) and (2), I propose that it be interpreted to be making something other than a straightforward identity claim. Callias is the same as his essence in the sense that to be identical to Callias is to be the same man as Callias (where Man is the essence of Callias). In general, x is identical to y if, and only if, x and y are the same E (where E specifies the "what it is to be" for x, i.e., the essence of x). So each of Socrates and Callias is the same as his essence, and Man is that essence, but Socrates and Callias are not identical, for they are not the same man.