tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7324222052862107872012-02-16T16:48:19.927-05:00Blogging Aristotle's Metaphysics, Summer 2009Kelly Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12409822800942153490noreply@blogger.comBlogger111100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732422205286210787.post-45855032243514573272009-07-06T09:26:00.002-04:002009-07-06T09:27:21.661-04:00

Here's a passage that helps me make sense of a pretty significant division in contemporary philosophy. From Beta 3:Apart from the great difficulty of stating the case truly with regard to these matters, it is very hard to say, with regard to the first principles, whether it is the genera that should be taken as elements and principles, or rather the primary constituents of a thing; e.g. it is the

Kelly Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12409822800942153490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732422205286210787.post-25400097074440185052009-06-23T15:33:00.002-04:002009-06-23T15:34:30.455-04:00

As we've been wrapping up Alpha and Little alpha I keep coming back to the question of what question Aristotle is tackling in this work. Or, really, these works. He's established in these opening books that this is the science of causes or principles; later on, in Gamma, he offers the famous formula that this is the science that investigates "being qua being."Neither of these is a tremendously

Kelly Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12409822800942153490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732422205286210787.post-32226559215347401352009-05-29T09:48:00.001-04:002009-05-30T12:32:09.344-04:00

In today's installment, Aristotle takes a swing at a superior officer and decides to leave the Academy.In these sections Aristotle runs through criticisms of his predecessors' accounts of causes and principles. And I mean he runs through them: these seem to be the briefest possible summaries of familiar objections, no doubt worked out in detail elsewhere, over a long period of time. I can

Kelly Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12409822800942153490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732422205286210787.post-25567148134550649342009-05-24T17:32:00.008-04:002009-05-27T10:10:42.631-04:00

I raised a pretty dumb question in our discussion last week, but in keeping with well-known clichés still managed to learn something from it. Puzzling over Aristotle's concept of this highest science, I wondered whether he changes his concept of the science after Alpha, or merely changes the focus of his inquiry a bit. In Alpha he says it's all about aitia and archai but then later he seems more

Kelly Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12409822800942153490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732422205286210787.post-16437377952269502192009-05-20T16:58:00.015-04:002009-05-24T17:32:01.455-04:00

These sections survey previous accounts of the causes (aitia) or principles (archai) of things and events. Since Aristotle has said in previous sections that genuine knowledge is knowledge of causes and principles--of why and how things come to be (and pass away)--this is pretty clearly central to his study.As for the four causes, they are the familiar four, known to all novice Philosophy

Kelly Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12409822800942153490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732422205286210787.post-57523216332349246972009-05-20T10:02:00.019-04:002009-05-22T12:06:08.742-04:00

These sections delve into the kinds of causes (aitia) or principles (archai) there are. Key concerns, since in Alpha, Aristotle indicates that this science seeks precisely this knowledge.Aristotle's "review of the literature," his survey of previous views concerning causation, is helpful as always. It's mind-boggling that what we know of some of these philosophers, we know from him. (Poor Hippo

Kelly Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12409822800942153490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732422205286210787.post-91691495009702558042009-05-20T09:16:00.013-04:002009-05-20T13:10:44.414-04:00

Robb brought a very helpful additional secondary source to my attention--John Herman Randall, Jr., Aristotle (Columbia University Press, 1962). Randall was a prominent pragmatist, a local boy born in Grand Rapids in 1899 who studied with John Dewey at Columbia. Randall spent his entire career there.Chapter 6: "The Ultimate Distinctions" is especially helpful to me. Maybe because he's a

Kelly Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12409822800942153490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732422205286210787.post-10898808548526756092009-05-18T10:33:00.006-04:002009-05-18T10:54:15.077-04:00

Here's Robb's chart of the kinds and sources of knowledge from Alpha section 1. Something like Aristotle's version of the Divided Line (from Plato's Republic, Book 6). This one concerns kinds of knowledge regarded as activities of the soul; later, in Alpha section 6, I may have a bit to say about how Aristotle critiques Plato's account of the objects of knowledge in the Divided Line.

Kelly Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12409822800942153490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732422205286210787.post-90166235483380650422009-05-11T07:49:00.001-04:002009-05-11T18:12:55.887-04:00

In 75 minutes on Wednesday we covered... sections 1 and 2! That's 4 1/2 pages in the Hippocrates Apostle translation. We set some priorities for this reading group. Robb H. is especially interested in the concept of energeia, I'm especially interested in ousia as well as the role of teleology in Aristotle's overall system of metaphysical thought.Quotable passages: "All men by nature desire

Kelly Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12409822800942153490noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732422205286210787.post-27946276749327878722009-05-04T07:45:00.000-04:002009-05-04T08:22:07.928-04:00

Aristotle largely defined the way we think, he introduced fundamental terms and categories of our language (sorry Chomsky-ites, but "substance" and "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts" and "prime matter" are learned rather than hard-wired; we mainly learned them from Aristotle), and the Metaphysics is a great intellectual workout, a towering landmark of philosophical achievement. If

Kelly Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12409822800942153490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732422205286210787.post-68388412922232979872009-04-01T13:41:00.001-04:002009-04-01T13:55:33.039-04:00

Each summer for as long as I recall, I have gone back to read one of Plato's dialogues. Great stuff, and there are a few left yet to read. But it's time for a change of pace: let's take on Aristotle's Metaphysics!Having been inspired by David Plotz's "Blogging the Bible" project on Slate.com back in September 2006, I've also decided to blog the whole project. We'll see how it develops.I'm

Kelly Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12409822800942153490noreply@blogger.com0