•  2
    Elemental Transformation in Aristotle: Three Dilemmas for the Traditional Account
    In Lukás Novák, Daniel D. Novotný, Prokop Sousedík & David Svoboda (eds.), Metaphysics: Aristotelian, Scholastic, Analytic, Ontos Verlag. pp. 59-72. 2012.
  •  12
    Hylomorphism, Homology, and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis
    Philosophy, Theology and the Sciences 7 (2): 253. 2020.
  •  23
    Aristotelian Explanation and Homology in Biology
    Ancient Philosophy Today 2 (1): 45-69. 2020.
    In his account of epistēmē, the highest level of understanding attainable in philosophical inquiry, Aristotle articulates standards for the ideal explanations that confer this level of understanding. I argue that Aristotle's key standard for epistēmē is of central importance for the biological homology concept. The explanatory shortcoming that results from violating this standard has been vaguely articulated in recent literature on homology; Aristotle's account offers a more neutral and precise …Read more
  •  11
    Socrates and Plato are one in species, but diverse in number. What accounts for their diversity in this sense? This question lies at the center of a longstanding controversy over what has been called the principle of individuation. Though multiple questions have been investigated using the terminology of individuation, the author’s focus here is on the question of what, for Aristotle, explains the numerical diversification of cospecific organisms, along with the two mainstream answers to this qu…Read more
  •  87
    Unity, Plurality, and Hylomorphic Composition in Aristotle's Metaphysics
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 96 (1): 1-13. 2018.
    How should we understand the relationship, for Aristotle, between matter, form, and hylomorphic composite? Are matter and form distinct from each other, so that each hylomorphic unity harbours a plurality within it, or would such a plurality undermine the unity of the composite? A recent strand of argument in both Aristotelian and contemporary literature on hylomorphism has concluded that no genuine unity can be composed of a plurality. I will argue that the objection motivating this conclusion …Read more
  •  22
    Matter in Biology
    American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 92 (2): 353-371. 2018.
    Aristotle insists that the organic matter composing an organism depends for its being and becoming upon the living organism whose organic matter it is. An evolutionary context may at first seem to secure autonomy for an organism’s organic matter: after all, in such a context not only can organisms in divergent taxa have the same trait, but a trait can remain the same through thoroughgoing changes in its form, function, composition, and organismic context over evolutionary time. The biological ho…Read more
  •  12
    Matter in Biology
    American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 92 (2): 353-371. 2018.
    Aristotle insists that the organic matter composing an organism depends for its being and becoming upon the living organism whose organic matter it is. An evolutionary context may at first seem to secure autonomy for an organism’s organic matter: after all, in such a context not only can organisms in divergent taxa have the same trait, but a trait can remain the same through thoroughgoing changes in its form, function, composition, and organismic context over evolutionary time. The biological ho…Read more