Walter Brogan

This essay argues that the fundamental premise of Aristotle’s political philosophy is that free citizens are those who rule and are ruled in turn. The virtuous community sustains a mean between these two dimensions of political life, and the decadent regime errs by excess or deficiency from this ideal. Aristotle sees the production and exercise of law as essential to preserve the continuity of the arrangements between citizens. In the production of law, the process of ruling together is best exemplified, and, at the same time, the citizens give themselves over to be ruled by the principles that have been laid down. Since living well is carried out in the realm of the political, we have to learn how to express our life in relationship to the whole that is shared with others. The life of law is achieved when the citizens become lawful.

Purpose. This dissertation aims to open up an avenue for understanding the relation between the thinking of Aristotle and that of Martin Heidegger. This entails a radical re-thinking of Aristotle's thought as the fulfillment of the Greek experience of Being. My thesis wishes to show that Heidegger's "commentary" on Aristotle's Physics, B, 1 reaches beyond this passage and is grounded in a discovery of the fundamental project that governs all of Aristotle's thought--the recovery of the meaning of physis. The thesis maintains that the method of this recovery lies in a proper understanding of logos. ;Sources. The dissertation follows the path of Heidegger's interpretation of Aristotle in "Vom Wesen und Begriff der Physis: Aristoteles' Physik B, 1." This short section of Aristotle's Physics on which Heidegger's discussion is based is actually a condensed formulation of the central thought and terminology of Aristotle's philosophy. Heidegger's other writings are considered when they are helpful in understanding the issues raised. The dissertation also examines Aristotle's writings to see to what extent Heidegger's interpretation is justified from a broader consideration of Aristotelian texts. ;Thesis. Aristotle's thinking accomplishes the fulfillment of the Greek understanding of Being. Being was understood in Greek thought as enduring presencing. Because natural beings are characterized by movement, their Being must therefore be an illusion and deception . Aristotle's accomplisment was to not deny the non-being which belonged to such beings and to think this non-being as a characteristic of Being itself. Aristotle was able to win his understanding of physis by paying attention to the logos, the address in which beings are revealed. The failure to see the Being of natural beings resulted from the dominance of the kind of logos employed in the realm of techne which brings forth beings under its direction and for its own use. But this kind of logos is inadequate for an understanding of natural beings because such beings have their genesis in themselves. Aristotle achieves his insight into the Being of natural beings by establishing the difference between physis and techne. In doing so, he reopens the ontological difference, the difference between Being and beings. It is on the basis of a proper understanding of this difference that Aristotle is able to show the sameness of beings in their Being

Gadamer's rethinking of the interconnection of theory and practice can lead to a resolution of the debate in contemporary Aristotelian scholarship regarding the priority of theory or practice in Aristotle's Ethics. This is especially true in light of Aristotle's treatment of friendship which, as I will try to show, provides support for Gadamer's claim. In Aristotle's notion of friendship, theory and practice come together, and the activity of friendship is for Aristotle the highest expression of human life precisely because true friendship requires the unity of theory and practice. I argue that Aristotle's sense of , contemplation, his sense of ultimate happiness that is constituted by the life of theory, is conceived by Aristotle in a thoroughly practical and political sense. Specifically I claim that the practice of theory is the politics of friendship.

My essay attempts humbly to honor and celebrate the voice of Charles Scott by thematizing one of the major insights of his body of work, namely the significance of the middle voice. I attempt in various ways to show the significance of the middle voice in the work of Charles Scott and to offer some commentary on what is meant by the middle voice. Finally, I ask about the implications of a middle-voiced philosophy for an understanding of the self of human beings and for an understanding of the theme of indifference in relation to the lives of things that Scott addresses in his later work.