Aristotle on natural teleology

Cooper, John M.

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511550874.012

Cited by 163 publications

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“…Necessity signifies sometimes that if there is to be that for the sake of which, these must necessarily be present -this is hypothetical necessity again -, and sometimes that this is their state and nature -this is the necessitation inherent in the material/efficient cause, in virtue of which ''that comes to be of necessity on account of those" {PA A l, 642a32 ff, following Balme's translation). A similar reading of the passage is given in Cooper (1986), pp. 154 ff, but a very different one appears in Balme ad loc.…”

Section: University Of Southern Californiamentioning

confidence: 86%

“…Balme (1972), followed by Preus (1975), argues that "material necessities" reduce to hypothetical necessities, so that in effect, material/efficient causes make no contribution towards causation in the strict sense, except insofar as they are reinterpreted in terms of final causes. In Cooper (1982) and ( reasonably be included in the notion of cause. But plausibly, a causal chain is not truly causal by contemporary standards, if it has an absolute first member; conversely, where a chain has no absolute first member, prima facie at least, any element on that chain is meant to be doing work that is recognizably causal.…”

Section: University Of Southern Californiamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Teleology and Material/Efficient Causes in Aristotle

Lewis

1988

Pacific Philosophical Qtr

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Section: University Of Southern Californiamentioning

confidence: 86%

Section: University Of Southern Californiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Teleology and Material/Efficient Causes in Aristotle

Lewis

1988

Pacific Philosophical Qtr

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“…Some think that partaking of the divine is the end of each substance. For discussion, see Cooper (2004a), Johnson (2005), and Rosen (2014). this question, Aristotle must explain why the matter of a substance composes one thing as opposed to a plurality of things. His answer appeals to the form of the substance (see Met.…”

Section: Formmentioning

confidence: 99%

On Persistence in Aristotle

O'Connor¹

2018

Ergo, an Open Access Journal of Philosophy

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In the Categories, Aristotle claims that the most distinctive mark of substance is that it persists through change of contraries (4a10-11), a claim he explains elsewhere by appeal to hylomorphism. This explanation has been characterized as an answer to what I call the Conditions Question, a question that asks for the conditions under which a substance before and after a change are identical. The evidence that Aristotle uses hylomorphism to answer this question is inconclusive, I argue. But I argue that Aristotle does use hylomorphism to answer a different question about persistence, a question that asks why substances are not destroyed as they change. I call this the Survival Question, and I argue that Aristotle's answer to it does not entail an answer to the Conditions Question; Aristotle can consistently explain why substances are not destroyed as they admit contraries without being committed to any view about what, if anything, identity through time for substances consists in.

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“…75See, for example, David Charles 1988, Frank Lewis 1988, and Susan Sauv6 1993 Of course, there is argument on the other side. See, especially, John Cooper 1982, Jonathan Lear 1988and, possibly, Sarah Waterlow Broadie 1982 76That is, he denies what Lewis 1988 calls "full necessitation." My evident sympathy with Lewis 1988 andCharles 1988 is not shared by Code and Moravcsik 1992, who register a number of worries about Charles's account.…”

Section: %Smentioning

confidence: 99%

Content and Cause in the Aristotelian Mind

Wedin

1993

The Southern J of Philosophy

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De Anima's lead idea is that the soul is the form of the body.' Implicitly, its functions and states depend in some systematic way on functions and states of the body. So Aristotelian psychology is a department of physics. This works well enough for nutrition, locomotion, and perception. Unfortunately, as Aristotle is quick to confess, it is considerably less clear how theoretical thought, particularly, fits the lead idea. Lacking a dedicated organ, the mind (voDc,) cannot be the form of any determinate, localizable bunch of matter. So noetic2 functions will have to depend in some weaker way on the body. I have in mind the following, fairly basic, idea: SUP. A family Y of properties supervenes on a family @ of properties 5 necessarily, for any property r in Y, if x has y~, then there is a property cp in such that x has cp and, necessarily, whatever has cp has

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Aristotle on natural teleology

Cited by 163 publications

References 0 publications

Teleology and Material/Efficient Causes in Aristotle

Teleology and Material/Efficient Causes in Aristotle

On Persistence in Aristotle

Content and Cause in the Aristotelian Mind

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