Ulysse Chaintreuil

This chapter explores the "lesser unity" of artifacts, which Aristotle mentions three times in the Metaphysics: a natural reality is more of one entity than the artifact. The lesser unit of artifacts stems from the specificity of the causal action of the artifact’s form, which acts “by force” or “by constraint” on the matter it brings together, whereas, by contrast, the natural form, such as the soul of an animal, acts “by nature,” that is, in a strictly immanent manner. Ce chapitre explore la « moindre unité » des artefacts, dont Aristote fait état trois fois dans la Métaphysique : la réalité naturelle est davantage une chose une que l’artefact. La moindre unité des artefacts tient à la spécificité de l’action causale de la forme de l’artefact, qui agit « par contrainte » ou « par force » sur la matière qu’elle totalise, là où au contraire la forme naturelle, comme l’âme d’un animal, agit « par nature » c’est-à-dire de manière strictement immanente.

This special issue of the Revue des Facultés de Droits contains the proceedings of a workshop organized in June 2024 in Paris in honor of Pierre Pellegrin's book, _Endangered excellence_ , which has been of decisive importance in the study of Aristotle's political philosophy and, more broadly, ancient political philosophy. As a political theorist, Aristotle provides legislators with the means to think about the reality of cities in order to enable them to establish just regimes, in particular a sophisticated method for thinking about the diversity of constitutional forms and a theory of change and revolution in cities. Ce numéro spécial de la Revue des Facultés de Droits constitue les actes d'une journée d'étude organisé en juin 2024 à Paris en l'honneur du livre de Pierre Pellegrin, _L'Excellence Menacée, dont l’importance a été décisive dans l’étude de la philosophie politique d’Aristote, et, plus largement, de la philosophie politique antique. Comme théoricien de la politique, Aristote fournit aux législateurs les moyens de penser la réalité des cités pour leur permettre d'instaurer des régimes droits, notamment une méthode fine pour penser la diversité des formes constitutionnelles et une théorie des changements et révolutions dans les cités.

According to the work of Pierre Hadot, ancient philosophy is unique in that, unlike modern and contemporary philosophy defined as a speculative discipline constituting a system of truths (a wisdom sophia, or a science epistêmê), it is instead set out in terms of a spiritual training, a practice (a praxis) based on a form of asceticism (askêsis). It aims to transform its reader’s mind to put it in a different disposition. And this is done by exercises in self-transformation. Philosophy conceived of in this manner would be a “way of life (bios),” that is, the object of an initial choice experienced as a true conversion, an “existential choice.” The philosopher, first described by Pythagoras as the one who observes (theôreô), chooses the contemplative life (bios theôrêtikos), taking care of his soul rather than of his body. He is, however, the one who, being a scholar and a wise man, eventually has the vocation to take charge of political life and to show how the path he has chosen to take (hodos) is also an entrance on the world stage (parodos), by which he assumes his exemplary character. The chapter shows how, from this Pythagorean setting, Plato, Aristotle, and then the Cynics, Stoics, and Epicureans reformulate the scheme of the way of life, until the final reinterpretation of it by the Skeptics. It also proposes to show why the reduction of ancient philosophy to a way of life, or to a transformative experience, is nevertheless contested by the ancient philosophers themselves.

When Aristotle questions the principle of unity in linguistic statements, or logoi, he gives the same two-part division in four very different places in the Aristotelian corpus: either a logos is one because it signifies a unity (ὁ ἓν σημαίνων), or it is one through the conjunction of a plurality (ἐκ πλειόνων συνδέσμῳ). However, in each of these occurrences, this alternative, and in particular its first branch, does not seem to refer to the same type of statement: sometimes it seems to refer only to the definiens, sometimes it seems to refer also to the declaration. We will show that this discrepancy indicates that the nature of the unity signified by these logoi is not the same: where the definiens signifies a single object, the declaration signifies more the uniqueness of a relationship between two objects. We can therefore understand that this topical opposition between the two types of unity actually allows us to conceive of a wide variety of propositional units, units that depend on the theoretical context in which they are deployed.

Les neuf contributions de ce volume visent à interroger la notion d’unité chez Aristote et la diversité de ses usages de manière transversale dans le corpus aristotélicien. De fait, il semble indiscutable que la question de l’unité – de ce qu’elle est, de la manière dont elle est appréhendée ou employée – est omniprésente dans la pensée d’Aristote. L’ouvrage offre un parcours qui part de l’enquête « hénologique » sur l’un du livre Iota de la Métaphysique, en passant par l’étude de la notion d’unité dans les écrits épistémologiques et logiques, ou encore dans les contextes biologiques et psychologiques, pour aboutir aux questions de l’unité dans le domaine éthique. Le volume vise à rassembler différentes études locales pour dégager les motifs philosophiques transversaux de la notion d’unité. Les contributions réunies offrent ainsi une nouvelle perspective sur les différents types d’unités complexes dont Aristote admet l’existence et les différents degrés d’unité que ceux-ci présentent.

Division is a fundamental procedure in the philosophy of classical Antiquity. It consists of describing an object by inscribing it in a general category (its genus) and then making differences or distinctions within this general category until it is sufficiently characterised. While this procedure has long been despised by secondary literature, in recent years it has come to the attention of a growing number of local studies. By presenting studies of division in Plato and Aristotle side by side, the present issue intends to show that division benefits from being approached from a comparative perspective, in order to highlight both the continuities between the two authors, and the irreducible characteristics of their respective approaches.

If the Aristotelian division has above all an epistemic and heuristic purpose, this article aims to examine the ontological appropriation of division by Aristotle in the Metaphysics, too often neglected by secondary literature. Division is also an ontological operation, insofar it governs the relationship between the eidos (which is identified, in the context of the central books of the Metaphysics, with the primary substance, i.e. what is properly speaking), its genus and the final differentia of this genus. More precisely, we will show that division is a case of the hylemorphic relation: the genus is an (intelligible) matter to which the final differentia obtained by division is predicated, and which then acts as the formal cause of this genus being such a determined eidos. However, this ontological and hylemorphic dimension of Aristotelian division is largely compatible with its methodological use.

La structure du definiens fait l’objet de deux traitements apparemment contradictoires dans les textes aristotéliciens : certains textes avancent que l’énoncé par lequel est définie une chose ne peut pas prendre la forme d’une prédication, parce que cet énoncé doit exprimer uniquement ce qu’est la chose qui est objet de la définition et non pas lui attribuer des termes, tandis que d’autres textes, notamment dans la Métaphysique, semblent suggérer précisément l’inverse, à savoir que le definiens doit prendre la forme d’une prédication. Le présent article se propose de lever cette tension apparente en prolongeant la thèse de Jacques Brunschwig selon laquelle la « prédication hylémorphique », c’est-à-dire la prédication de la forme à la matière, doit être distinguée de la prédication classique. Nous montrerons que la prédication, lorsqu’elle est hylémorphique, se distingue en ce qu’elle permet d’assurer l’unité des termes qu’elle articule – matière et forme sont en effet « une seule et même chose ». Or c’est précisément là ce qui fait défaut à la prédication classique, qui attribue toujours « une chose à une autre », et c’est ce qui lui interdit donc d’être la structure du definiens. La tension entre les textes portant sur la structure prédicative ou non du definiens peut alors être levée en affirmant que le definiens est bien une prédication, qui ne peut pas être une prédication au sens standard du terme, mais qui doit être une prédication d’une forme à une matière.

The place of matter in the definition of the sensible substance evolves over the course of Metaphysics books Z and H : whereas chapters 10 and 11 of book Z claim that matter must be excluded from the definiens of the sensible substance, chapter 2 of book H claims that it must include it. The present article will show that this difference in doctrine comes from a refinement of the way in which the causal priority of form is expressed in the definition. First, in book Z, it is expressed by a reduction of the terms of the definiens to « parts of the form » only, a reduction which is immediately considered superfluous and unsatisfactory. In book H then, it will be by the position it occupies as a predicate of the matter that is precisely meant to express this priority. In this sense, the two sets of texts do not constitute a theoretic volte-face from Aristotle, but the refinement of a single model of definition expressing the priority of form.