Jonathan Beere

In the _Sophist_, Plato makes the Eleatic Visitor define sophistic as an expertise ( τέχνη ), in stark contrast to the account of sophistic in the _Gorgias_. This paper focuses on the almost entirely overlooked problem of what it could mean for sophistic to be an expertise. Sophistic, in the _Sophist_, is the ability to appear wise (without being so). This paper argues that sophistic counts as an expertise because the sophist can explain the causes of sophistic success and failure in terms of a true but incomplete account of wisdom as irrefutability. The account of wisdom as irrefutability is true, but it turns out that irrefutability, too, can be real or merely apparent. The full account of wisdom must include an account of true, by contrast with merely apparent, refutation. The knowledge of true refutation turns out to be identical with the knowledge of forms and their exclusion relations. Recent arguments of Lesley Brown’s that sophistic is not, by Plato’s own criteria, an expertise, are rebutted. The paper’s positive account of sophistic as an expertise relies on the distinction between likenesses (proportion-preserving copies) or appearances (proportion-distorting copies). This distinction, which has no parallel in earlier dialogues, makes it possible to see how there can be an expertise of producing merely apparent _F_s without knowledge of what is really _F_.

Doing and Being confronts the problem of how to understand two central concepts of Aristotle's philosophy: energeia and dunamis. While these terms seem ambiguous between actuality/potentiality and activity/capacity, Aristotle did not intend them to be so. Through a careful and detailed reading of Metaphysics Theta, the author argues that we can solve the problem by rejecting both ‘actuality’ and ‘activity’ as translations of energeia, and by working out an analogical conception of energeia. This approach enables the author to discern a hitherto unnoticed connection between Plato's Sophist and Aristotle's Metaphysics Theta, and to give satisfying interpretations of the major claims that Aristotle makes in Metaphysics Theta, the claim that energeia is prior in being to capacity (Theta 8), and the claim that any eternal principle must be perfectly good (Theta 9).

Die Erklärung der Begriffe ›Akt‹ und ›Potenz‹ erfordert es, zunächst den sprachlichen Hintergrund dieser Begriffe zu erörtern. Es handelt sich dabei nämlich um Ausnahmen in Aristoteles’ Philosophie. Während er sich meistens des Wortschatzes der natürlichen Sprache bedient, oder bisweilen termini technici von seinen Vorgängern übernimmt, sind energeia (Akt) und entelecheia (Wirklichkeit) höchstwahrscheinlich neu erfundene Wörter (sie kommen zumindest in keinem überlieferten Text vor Aristoteles vor).

Die Begriffe ›Form‹ und ›Materie‹ kommen bei Aristoteles zunächst in seiner Analyse der Veränderung vor. In Physik I 7 beispielsweise erläutert Aristoteles die verschiedenen Sinne, in denen man sagen kann, dass etwas zu etwas wird. Er unterscheidet zwischen einfacher und komplexer Rede: Wenn X Y wird, können X und Y mit je einem Wort bezeichnet warden (z. B. ›der Mensch wird gebildet‹) oder mit einem aus mindestens zwei Wörtern bestehenden Ausdruck (z. B. ›der ungebildete Mensch wird ein gebildeter Mensch‹).

This dissertation presents a close reading of book theta of Aristotle's Metaphysics, where Aristotle discusses being potentially and being actively, as well as potentiality and active being themselves. I argue that being actively has been widely misunderstood, because the term 3,n 3&d12;rg3i a has been misunderstood. The standard translation 'actuality' is misleading. The central case of active being is that of a housebuilder engaged in building a house, by contrast with a housebuilder who merely has the ability to build a house. The other cases of active being are, according to Aristotle, to be understood by analogy with that case. Analogy, here, is a technical semantic notion. The translation, 'actuality,' obscures the analogy among cases of active being rather than illuminating it. The translation 'active being' highlights the analogy and shows how Aristotle's conception of active being is a philosophically powerful and interesting notion. ;This interpretation makes sense of an otherwise puzzling feature of Metaphysics theta. The text falls into two parts, which seem to have little to do with one another. On my reading, the first part already discusses cases of active and potential being, although not as such. Aristotle later draws on this discussion, when he explains active and potential being as such in theta.6--9. I argue that, in the first part of theta, Aristotle does not presuppose any form of the Principle of Plenitude, as has been thought. Rather, he has three separate but connected notions of being able: having an ability; an extended notion of having an ability; and non-time-relative possibility. ;The culmination of Metaphysics theta is an argument that active being has priority in being over potential being. Aristotle, I show, applies two different criteria for priority in being, one to perishable things and one to eternal things. The construal of 3,n 3&d12;rg3i a as active being helps show why Aristotle should do this. It also makes sense of the various arguments Aristotle gives for the priority of active being, concerning both perishable and eternal things.

This paper argues that there are three distinct senses of possibility at play in the Republic’s discussion of whether the best city is possible: natural possibility, possibility for existing cities, and ideal possibility. It is argued that Socrates makes different claims about each of the three political proposals in Book v. (1) Women guardians are argued to be naturally possible. (2) Socrates considers it an open question whether the common family of guardians (the so-called ‘community of women and children’) is naturally possible. He argues, however, that it is ideally possible. (3) The philosopher-king is claimed to be possible in the strongest sense: it is not only naturally possible, it is also possible for existing cities. It is for this reason that the common family of guardians is ideally possible. This clarifies the sense in which the best city is best.

The paper examines the connection between Aristotle's theory of generated substance and his notion of potentiality in "Metaphysics" Θ.7. Aristotle insists that the matter of a substance is not what that substance is, against a competing view that was widely held both in his day and now. He coined the term thaten (ἐ[unrepresentable symbol]νινονον) in order to make this point. The term highlights a systematic correspondence between the metaphysics of matter and of quality: the relationship between a thing and its matter is like the relationship between a qualified thing and the relevant quality. It is argued that Aristotle's view about the matter of particular substances is connected with his view about ultimate matter. His conception of the matter of particular substances allows him to block an argument, from Plato's "Timaeus", that ultimate matter must be something imperceptible and lacking all perceptible qualities. Aristotle uses the term thaten to introduce an alternative conception of ultimate matter on which ultimate matter might well be an ordinary perceptible kind of thing.

Doing and Being confronts the problem of how to understand two central concepts of Aristotle's philosophy: energeia and dunamis. While these terms seem ambiguous between actuality/potentiality and activity/capacity, Aristotle did not intend them to be so. Through a careful and detailed reading of Metaphysics Theta, Beere argues that we can solve the problem by rejecting both "actuality" and "activity" as translations of energeia, and by working out an analogical conception of energeia. This approach enables Beere to discern a hitherto unnoticed connection between Plato's Sophist and Aristotle's Metaphysics Theta, and to give satisfying interpretations of the major claims that Aristotle makes in Metaphysics Theta, the claim that energeia is prior in being to capacity (Theta 8) and the claim that any eternal principle must be perfectly good (Theta 9).