Annamaria Schiaparelli

This volume presents a new translation of Aristotle's Topics Book VI by Annamaria Schiaparelli, accompanied by a detailed commentary and textual notes providing insight into the history of the transmission of the text with its variants. In the Topics, Aristotle aims at developing his dialectical method. He introduces the four predicables (property, genus, accident, and definition) which are necessary for the classification and application of the topoi, or commonplaces. Book VI of the Topics is entirely devoted to the discussion of definition, the most extended and refined discussion of this subject handed down to us from the classical period. The concept of definition plays a central role not only in Aristotle's logic but also in his ontology. Issues connected with definitions emerge constantly throughout his works. Moreover, definitions are at the centre of Platonic philosophy and sparked a lively discussion in philosophy of the Hellenistic and late classical periods.

Aristotle's Poetics is one of the deepest and most influential philosophical works on art, or rather, on a specific art. The treatise pursues several aims, one of which, and the most general, is to classify the works that can be labeled “poetical composition” and their parts. Another, more specific, aim is to vindicate poetry in the face of the criticism leveled at it by Plato. Another specific aim is to explain some concepts that are fundamental for the understanding of poetry. Furthermore, the discussion of some forms of poetry was probably a useful way to express ideas about education and political life in the city, and to convey thoughts about the relation between people's actions and their characters. The range of issues covered by the Poetics makes it reasonable to bring the topics under two headings: Aristotle's views on poetry in general; and his account of tragedy.

This paper discusses the fallacies of combination and division as they are presented by Aristotle in chapter 4 of his Sophistici Elenchi. Aristotle's examples are concise, their discussion is unclear, and it is difficult to distinguish the cases of combination from those of division. I analyse the Aristotelian examples and the interpretations offered so far. I show that these interpretations suffer from a major defect: they fail to identify a common characteristic whereby the Aristotelian examples can be classified as instances of combination or division. In my reconstruction of the examples, I repair this deficiency: I give a single pattern of explanation for the fallacy of combination and another (similar) pattern for the fallacy of division. Thus, it is possible to free Aristotle from the following charges: (i) he did not clearly distinguish between combination and division, and (ii) he reduced combination and division to a single fallacy. My explanation of the fallacies uses the notion of scope of an expression: in modern terminology, the fallacy of combination can be described as?fallacy of the wide scope?, the fallacy of division as?fallacy of the narrow scope?

In this paper, Plotinus' treatise On Dialectic I.3 [20] is discussed. In the first part of the paper, I argue that for Plotinus the importance of dialectic stands in the method of division that enables one to grasp the ‘what it is’. I present and examine some passages which contain a description of dialectic and an account of its activity. I then look into the reasons why Plotinus affirms the superiority of dialectic, as he conceived it, over logic, as the Peripatetics and the Stoics conceived it. The second part of the paper explores the relation between dialectic and truth and that between dialectic and soul: in this discussion Plotinus offers some interesting and more original epistemological remarks.

The concepts of essence and cause are widely discussed in philosophy: they are central themes of the philosophical speculation in Antiquity as well as nowadays. In Antiquity, the concept of definition was closely connected to that of essence: at least from Aristotle onwards, it was generally assumed that the definition indicates or expresses the essence. However, these concepts are highly problematic. Furthermore, when one tries to analyse the relation between essence and cause, the task becomes even more challenging. This chapter focuses on some aspects of the concepts of essence and cause as they are presented in Plotinus' _Ennead_ VI.7 [38] 2. In particular, the influence of Aristotle's viewpoint on Plotinus' discussion is analysed. For this reason, some Aristotelian texts are also presented. It brings evidence in support of the view that Plotinus is interested in applying part of the Aristotelian conceptual apparatus in his analysis on the causality of Forms.