Karen Margrethe Nielsen

In this paper I consider Aristotle’s argument involving ineluctable causal chains in _Metaphysics E_ 3, and maintain that it seeks to establish the existence of coincidental causes. The thesis that Aristotle targets for refutation is not, as has frequently been assumed, efficient-causal determinism, but rather the view that everything that happens has a _per se_ cause which produces its effects by way of a teleological process. I argue that Aristotle’s endorsement of coincidental causes is compatible with efficient-causal determinism. While eating spicy food is a coincidental cause of dying from violence, there could still be efficient-causal chains leading from eating spicy food to dying in this way. The paper considers the parallel argument in _Metaphysics K_ 8 in support of this interpretation.

The chapter addresses the question of the relationship between self-knowledge and virtue. It extracts an account of self-knowledge from Aristotle’s remarks about magnanimity and truthfulness in the _Nicomachean Ethics_, and explains how magnanimity in the form of self-knowledge acts as an ‘adornment of virtue’ by reinforcing our inclination to choose virtuous acts for their own sakes. Self-knowledge, it turns out, is confined to the virtuous: only the virtuous person knows her own decision for action, while the akratic becomes temporarily ignorant of her decision, in failing to attend to it and its affirming function. The vicious person, meanwhile, does not perceive or know the true quality of her actions or motives, being in error about their value. This chapter defends an account of Aristotelian self-knowledge as necessarily encompassing practical nous rather than simply theoretical nous.

Background and Objective Current treatments of port-wine stain birthmarks typically involve use of a pulsed dye laser combined with cooling of the skin. Currently, PDL therapy protocols result in varied success, as some patients experience complete blanching, while others do not. Over the past decade, we have studied the use of photodynamic therapy as either a replacement or adjuvant treatment option to photocoagulate both small and large vasculature. The objective of the current study was to evaluate a PDT protocol that involves use of an alternate intravascular photosensitizer mono-L-aspartylchlorin-e6 activated by an array of low-cost light emitting diodes. Study Design/Materials and Methods To monitor the microvasculature, a dorsal window chamber model was installed on 22 adult male mice. The light source consisted of a custom-built LED array that emitted 10 W at a center wavelength of 664 nm. The light source was positioned at a fixed distance from the window chamber to achieve a fixed irradiance of 127 mW/cm 2. A retroorbital injection of NPe6 was performed to deliver the drug into the bloodstream. Laser irradiation was initiated immediately after injection. To monitor blood-flow dynamics in response to PDT, we used laser speckle imaging. We employed a dose-response experimental design to evaluate the efficacy of NPe6-mediated PDT. Results We observed three general hemodynamic responses to PDT: At low radiant exposures, we did not observe any persistent vascular shutdown; at intermediate radiant exposures, we observed an acute decrease in blood flow followed by gradual restoration of blood flow over the 7-day monitoring period; and at high radiant exposures, we observed acute vascular shutdown that persisted during the entire 7-day monitoring period. Dose-response analysis enabled identification of 85 J/cm 2 as a characteristic radiant exposure required to achieve persistent vascular shutdown at Day 7 following PDT. Conclusion The experimental data suggest that NPe6-mediated PDT can achieve persistent vascular shutdown of normal microvasculature. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

La recherche d’une définition de la raison droite ( orthos logos ) au livre VI de l’ Éthique à Nicomaque d’Aristote n’est pas une recherche des “raisons droites” ou du “raisonnement droit” que produit l’expert – il ne tente pas de caractériser (et moins encore de “définir”) le type de justification ou de délibération qu’un médecin ou un phronimos produisent avant de choisir la bonne façon de procéder. A fortiori, il ne recherche pas des règles de conduite. Il recherche plutôt les propriétés qui caractérisent l’âme d’une personne qui est capable de raisonner correctement: la “raison droite” comprise comme perfection de la partie rationnelle de l’âme. Dans cet article, j’examine la description aristotélicienne de la phronēsis, la vertu de la pensée ( dianoētikē aretē ) qui a rapport à l’action, et l’ euboulia, en tant qu’elle en est l’excellence caractéristique.

The _Magna Moralia_ has long been the ugly duckling in the Aristotelian pond, shunned on account of its ungainly composition, flat-footed argument, and peculiar linguistic habits. In this essay, I examine one influential argument against its authenticity, namely the hypothesis that the author of the _MM_ was a student or a later compendium writer, attempting to reconstruct the argument of the _Eudemian Ethics_ or _Nicomachean Ethics_. My test case is the analyses of deliberation (_bouleusis_) and decision (_prohairesis_) in the three ethics. I argue that the _MM_ diverges on important points from the _EE_ and the _EN_, and that even an inept compendium writer or note taker could not have extracted the analysis in the _MM_ from the other treatises. I conclude that the _MM_ may resemble the _EE_ because the former is an early and immature version of the latter.

This article examines Aristotle's model of deliberation as inquiry (zêtêsis), arguing that Aristotle does not treat the presumption of open alternatives as a precondition for rational deliberation. Deliberation aims to uncover acts that are up to us and conducive to our ends; it essentially consists in causal mapping. Unlike the comparative model presupposed in the literature on deliberation, Aristotle's model can account for the virtuous agent's deliberation, as well as deliberation with a view to “satisficing” desires and deliberation that fails to uncover any expedient course of action. Aristotle's account of the constraints governing rational deliberation is furthermore not incompatibilist—for all Aristotle says, we may deliberate rationally despite being committed to the truth of determinism

In this paper I examine Aristotle's account of sexual difference in Generation of Animals, arguing that Aristotle conceives of the production of males as the result of a successful teleological process, while he sees the production of females as due to material forces that defeat the norms of nature. My suggestion is that Aristotle endorses what I call the "degrees of perfection" model. I challenge Devin Henry's attempt to argue that Aristotle explains sex determination exclusively with reference to material necessity (in particular, levels of "vital heat" in the male semen), for Aristotle's notion of "sufficient" or "deficient" vital heat is itself teleological. If, as Aristotle is aware, male and female embryos appear with approximately equal frequency in most species, how, in light of Physics II, can he conceive of the former as in accordance with nature, and the latter as somehow contrary to nature? My proposal is that Aristotle's notion of what happens usually (ως επì τò πoλυ) is bifurcated: the usual need not be more frequent.

In this fine study, Hendrik Lorenz revisits Plato's argument for a tripartite soul in Republic IV. He proposes an interpretation that seeks to explain how the Principle of Opposites when supplemented by examples of motivational conflict, can show that reason, spirit, and appetite are basic, non-composite parts of the human soul.The discussion of parts of soul is merely a prelude to Lorenz's discussion of non-rational cognition in Plato and Aristotle in the final two parts of the book. Even readers who wish to quibble with Lorenz's analysis of psychic parts are likely to find his detailed and textually astute analysis of non-rational cognition intrinsically rewarding. Here is how the themes connect: Lorenz holds that in order to prevent the principle of opposites from running amok, yielding a number of psychic subparts, Plato must deny the ability to reason, or even to understand the deliverances of reason, to the non-rational parts of the soul. How, then, can Plato account for the fact that non-rational parts are capable of giving rise to fully formed

My aim in this paper is to examine Aristotle's puzzling and contentious claim inPolitics1.13 that the deliberative faculty in women is ‘without authority’ :The freeman rules over the slave after another manner from that in which the male rules over the female, or the man over the child; although the parts of the soul are present in all of them, they are present in different ways. For the slave lacks the deliberative faculty altogether; the woman has it, but it is without authority, and the child has it, but it is immature.

This book consolidates emerging research on Aristotle's science and ethics in order to explore the extent to which the concepts, methods, and practices he developed for scientific inquiry and explanation are used to investigate moral phenomena. Each chapter shows, in a different way, that Aristotle's ethics is much more like a science than it is typically represented. The upshot of this is twofold. First, uncovering the links between Aristotle's science and ethics promises to open up new and innovative directions for research into his moral philosophy. Second, showing why Aristotle thinks ethics can never be fully assimilated to the model of science will help shed new light on his views about the limits of science. The volume thus promises to make a significant contribution to our understanding of the epistemological, metaphysical, and psychological foundations of Aristotle's ethics

The analysis of 'mixed acts' in Nicomachean Ethics III, 1 has led scholars to attribute a theory of 'dirty hands' and 'impossible oughts' to Aristode. Michael Stocker argues that Aristode recognizes particular acts that are simultaneously 'right, even obligatory', but nevertheless 'wrong, shameful and the like'. And Martha Nussbaum commends Aristotle for not sympathizing 'with those who, in politics or in private affairs, would so shrink from blame and from unacceptable action that they would be unable to take a necessary decision for the best'. In this paper I reexamine Aristotle's analysis of putatively 'mixed acts' in Nicomachean Ethics III, 1, maintaining that Aristode denies that there are acts that are (i) voluntary under the circumstances, (ii) right, all things considered, under the circumstances, but nevertheless (iii) shameful or wrong for moral or prudential reasons under the circumstances. The paper defends this interpretation with reference to Aristode's discussion of shame in EN IV, 9 and Rhetoric II, 6, as well as his overall meta-ethical commitment to a position I call 'mitigated circumstantial relativism'. By focusing on Aristotle's analysis of putatively 'mixed acts', we come closer to a true appreciation of Aristode's ethical theory, even though 'mixed act' is not, I argue, a category in Aristode's considered ontology of action