THANKS TO THE CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS AND THE MEMBERS OF THE AUDIENCE WHO HEARD THE PAPERS AND OFTENTIMES JOINED INTO THE DISCUSSIONS, THIS WAS ANOTHER VERY SUCCESSFUL AND ENJOYABLE SUMMER CONFERENCE ON ARISTOTLE AND ARISTOTELIANISM.

WE INTEND TO CONTINUE THIS ANNUAL EVENT WITH OUR FOURTH ANNUAL SUMMER CONFERENCE ON ARISTOTLE AND ARISTOTELIANISM IN JUNE 2009.

THE CONFERENCE THEME AND PRECISE DATES WILL BE ANNOUNCED IN EARLY 2009 WITH THE USUAL CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS.

DR RICHARD TAYLOR, PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT

DR OWEN GOLDIN, PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT

MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY

Third Annual Marquette Summer Seminar in

Ancient and Medieval Philosophy

Presented by the Midwest Seminar in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy

and the Aquinas and the Arabs Project

with the support of the

Helen Way Klingler College of Arts and Sciences at Marquette

Marquette University

Department of Philosophy

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, June 17-19, 2008

This Conference is intended to provide a formal occasion and central location for philosophers and scholars of the Midwest region (and elsewhere) to present and discuss their current work on Aristotle’ and his Interpreters in ancient and medieval philosophy.

PRESENTERS: Established Scholars: send a title and tentative abstract; Graduate Students: send a title, abstract and a supporting letter from your faculty advisor or dissertation director. Send applications to: Richard.Taylor@Marquette.edu.

OPENING DATE FOR SUBMISSIONS: March 1, 2008

The Organizing Committee will select presenters on the basis  of quality of proposals (title and abstract) and scholarly record as the primary criteria.  Presenters selected will be asked to confirm their participation by registering and paying the conference fee ($35).

PROGRAM ANNOUNCED: May 1 or earlier if filled.

ATTENDING ONLY: Send Registration check with name, address, academic affiliation.

CONFERENCE REGISTRATION FOR ALL PRESENTERS AND ATTENDEES

(fees cover breakfasts, refreshments, dinner one night)

Advance Registration by May 1: $35 by check, At the Door: $45 cash.

CHECKS SHOULD BE MADE OUT TO: Marquette University

(Fees are waived for Marquette students, faculty and staff.)

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Registration Form.

NAME:

TITLE: 

ACADEMIC AFFILIATION:

ADDRESS:

TELEPHONE:

CHECK NUMBER: 

(Registration fees are waived for members of the Marquette community.)

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Print the Registration Form above and send your check made out to “Marquette University” to:

Richard Taylor

Philosophy Department

Marquette University

P.O. Box 1880

Milwaukee, WI 53201-1881

Conference Schedule

All sessions will be held in the Beaumier Conference Center in the lower level of Raynor Library. (See below for location link.)

TUESDAY JUNE 17: Beaumier Conference Center

8:30 am. Coffee, tea, orange juice, etc.

Presentations  

9-10:25: [1] Luis Xavier Lopez Farjeat, Universidad Panamericana, Mexico City, “Aristotle and Avicenna on Animal Thinking”

10:35-12: [2] Joseph A. Novak, University of Waterloo, “What’s the Matter in Aristotle?”

12-1:30 pm Lunch: suggestions: AMU (Student Union), Subway, local Chinese or Pizza restaurants, Ziggy's, and more in the immediate area.

Presentations

1:30-2:55: [3] Robert Bolton, Rutgers University, “Subject, Soul, and Substance in Aristotle.”

3:05-4:30: [4] Keith E. McPartland, Cornell University and Williams College, “Hypothetical Necessity, Physiological Realization and Functionalism in Aristotle’s Philosophy of Perception.”

4:40-6:05: [5] Ian Flora, University of Michigan, “Believing at Will and Responding to Fiction: Aristotle on the Real Difference between Belief and ‘Imagination’”

7:00 pm family style dinner at the Casablanca (Arabic) Restaurant, 728 E. Brady St., Milwaukee. www.casablancaonbrady.com (Self-pay of about $20 without drinks.)

WEDNESDAY JUNE 18: Beaumier Conference Center

8:30 am. Coffee, tea, orange juice, etc.

Presentations

9-10:25: [6] Robert Hahn, Southern Illinois University, “Has Aristotle Got the Origins of Philosophy Wrong?”

10:35-12: [7] Jeffrey C. Witt, Boston College, “Aristotle’s Theory of Demonstration and its Explanatory Power.”

12-1:30 pm Lunch: suggestions: AMU (Student Union), Subway, local Chinese or Pizza restaurants, Ziggy's, and more in the immediate area.

Presentations

1:30-2:55: [8] Andrew Lang, Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, “Chance, the Vain, and Teratology in Physics II 6,”

3:05-4:30: [9] Owen Goldin, Marquette University, “Philoponus (?) on Material and Formal Definitions in the Sciences”

4:40-6:05: [10] Robert Greene, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, “Was Aristotle the First Neoplatonist?”

No formal conference dinner plans, though I am sure we can provide some interesting suggestions.

THURSDAY JUNE 19: Beaumier Conference Center

8:30 am. Coffee, tea, orange juice, etc.

Presentations 

9-10:25: [11] Gene Fendt, University of Nebraska at Kearney, “Natural Constructions: The poetic, the political, the human”

10:35-12: [12] José Alberto Ross Hernández, Universidad Panamericana, Mexico City, “The Life and Causality of the First Mover.”

12-1:30 pm Lunch: suggestions: AMU (Student Union), Subway, local Chinese or Pizza restaurants, Ziggy's, and more in the immediate area. 

Presentations

1:30-2:55: [13] Anthony K. Jensen, Xavier University, Cincinnati, “The Unmoved-Mover as Efficient and Final Cause.”

3:05-4:30: [14]  Jed Delahoussaye, Southern Illinois University, “Scotus and Aristotle on a Beautiful Death.”

4:30: Closing Remarks and Discussion

ca. 7:00 pm    Conference Dinner (included in conference fee):

At the home of David and Cindy Twetten, 1895 Pilgrim Pkwy Brookfield, WI 53005-5146.

http://www.mapquest.com/maps/915+W.+Wisconsin+Ave+Milwaukee+WI+53233/1895+Pilgrim+Pkwy+Brookfield+WI+53005/#a/mapsprint/l::915+W+Wisconsin+Ave:Milwaukee:WI:53233-2310:US:43.038666:-87.92345:address:Milwaukee+County/l::1895+Pilgrim+Pkwy:Brookfield:WI:53005-5146:US:43.056044:-88.107133:address:Waukesha+County/m::2:::0::/io:1:::::f:EN:m:/e

CONFERENCE LOCATION:

Conference sessions will take place in the Raynor Library (1355 W. Wisconsin Ave.) Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday June 17-19, 2008. For information on the Raynor Library and nearby parking see http://www.marquette.edu/contact/finder/raynor.shtml and the links there.

HOUSING:

On campus housing is available in Straz Tower, 915 W. Wisconsin Ave. (single or double, $44-70 per night). To reserve a room contact the housing office directly:  Carrie Martin at 414-288-7204 or via email at carrie.enea@marquette.edu.

15 rooms are being held for this event. Cut-off date: May 17, 2008. Rooms requested after the cut-off date are subject to availability.

HOTELS:

Just a few blocks East from Marquette University is the Holiday Inn Milwaukee City Center, 611 West Wisconsin Ave., Milwaukee, WI 53203. Tel. 1-414-273-2950.

For further information on the hotel, see http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/h/d/hi/1/en/hd/mkecc?irs=null

A few blocks West from Marquette University is the charming Ambassador Hotel: 2308 W Wisconsin Ave., Milwaukee, WI 53233. Tel.(414) 342-8400

For further information on the hotel, see www.ambassadormilwaukee.com

(Mention that you are attending a Marquette conference may get you a discount. Be sure to ask.)

DIRECTIONS AND MAPS:

For directions to the Marquette Campus, see http://www.marquette.edu/contact/directions/

For a map of the Marquette University campus, see http://www.marquette.edu/contact/CampusMap.pdf

For a map of downtown Milwaukee, see

http://www.wisconline.com/counties/milwaukee/map-downtown.html

TRAVELING TO MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY (& DOWNTOWN MILWAUKEE) FROM

MILWAUKEE’S MITCHELL AIRPORT:

For a shuttle, see http://www.mitchellairport.com/getting.html

Downtown Milwaukee: info from http://kiwinc.itgo.com/mwc/mitchell.html

    * Expect a taxi to cost around $30 or a bit more due to fuel costs.

    * Most convenient: Airport Connection shared ride van serves a frequent loop of most downtown hotels. http://mkelimo.com/ ($12-15)

    * Cheapest: MCTS route 80 serves 6th St. downtown, next to the Midwest Airlines Center and nearby hotels. Travel time is 25 minutes, often only a few minutes longer than taxi or van.

http://www.ridemcts.com/routes_and_schedules/schedule.asp?route=80

The Conference Center is in the lower level of Raynor Library at 1355 W. Wisconsin Ave.

Midwest Seminar in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy link:

http://web.mac.com/mistertea/Midwest_Seminar/Welcome.html

Aquinas and the Arabs Project link:

http://web.mac.com/mistertea/iWeb/Aquinas%20&%20the%20Arabs/Aquinas%20&%20the%20Arabs.html

MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT link:

http://www.marquette.edu/phil/

Presentation Abstracts:

Below are the accepted initial proposals in alphabetical order by author

(1) Robert Bolton, Rutgers University, “Subject, Soul, and Substance in Aristotle.”

(2) Jed Delahoussaye, Southern Illinois University, “Scotus and Aristotle on a Beautiful Death.”

    In books three and nine of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle tells us that the display of courage in combat has a single object, a single suffering, and one leading end. The risk of immediate death is it’s single object; the destruction of the soldier's life, it's single suffering; and the beauty of the courageous act that needs doing, its end. The citizen soldier who has no hope of heaven but is able to muster such an act loves both himself and his country firmly. He seeks his country's good for its sake. He suffers willingly for its good. If he did not love his country, he would not sacrifice himself for it. However, love of country is not what principally spurs him on to heroic self-sacrifice. The virtuous person loves himself more than anyone or anything else. And so what most spurs him to carry out the courageous act is the very moral beauty of the act itself. He needs to do the right thing. He has made himself just this sort of person. And he has done well in forming his character in this way since the performance of a virtuous act benefits objectively both the act's agent and its beneficiary. Courageous self-sacrifice in battle serves the public good. In accomplishing it the soldier scales a summit of virtue. The principal labor of love to which the soldier steels himself is the achievement of the courageous act. In doing so he is motivated before all else by his love for the moral beauty of the act itself. When assessed in the light of moral beauty, the value of a good that must be sacrificed in order to achieve it – even the soldier's own life – depreciates. Heroic self-sacrifice is in his self-interest because the courageous act is preeminently in his self-interest. The beauty of the courageous act is immanent, it is contained in act itself. The soldier does not choose death; he chooses moral beauty and the summit of virtue he reaches in achieving it. What he realizes in the courageous act is better for him than anything he sacrifices for country. He could not love himself better by doing anything else.  

    The essay will be primarily concerned with establishing the following reading of Scotus. In Ordinatio III, supplemental distinction 27, Scotus argues that the courageous soldier loves his country more than he loves himself and, accordingly, that the end of courage in combat is not the beauty of the courageous act, but the good of country. The soldier may not feel more love (passio appetitus sensitivi) for his country than for himself, but he does love his country more than himself if we look at what he wills for it. He elicits an act of will (actus voluntatis) in which he chooses more evil for himself than for his country. In stark philosophical terms, the soldier in willing the public good looks beyond the act and its inherent beauty and wills his own non-being and the non-being of his act rather than evil happening to his country. He fears this eventuality worse than he fears death. At the forefront of his mind is the principal end he is pursuing, the public good. The motive force that spurs him on most to attain it is love of country. This is the labor of love to which he sets himself. . . .

(3) Gene Fendt, University of Nebraska at Kearney, “Natural Constructions: The poetic, the political, the human”

The paradox of this paper is that it seems a thing can be natural--like a tree, or a construction--like a house, but not both. But for Aristotle natural constructions are exactly the kind of thing both poetry (meaning all the arts) and constitutions are. Hobbes, Locke, and others disagree; so the paradox is modern; the moderns think both poetry and constitutions are artificial constructions, Aristotle (and Plato) do not.  Starting from a story of how the human being is itself a “natural construction” this paper shows the filiation of poetry and constitutions to natural living things on one side and tools on the other. The argument will conclude that criticism of both poetry and constitutions depends upon a correct understanding of final causality in each thing. In both cases the thing in question is not simply a made thing of human choice—like tools, but one that also arises out of nature and so is inescapable.

(4) Ian Flora, University of Michigan, “Believing at Will and Responding to Fiction: Aristotle on the Real Difference between Belief and ‘Imagination’”

In Book 3 of the De Anima, Aristotle makes several arguments to distinguish belief from another type of mental state that he calls phantasia. Two such arguments, found at 3.3.427b16-25, have received little serious attention. The first argues that, while phantasia is “up to us,” belief must “either be true or false.” The second argues that, while forming a belief makes us “immediately affected accordingly,” we react “as if looking at a picture” when we experience phantasia.

These short arguments are rife with textual and philosophical problems; misunderstanding and dismissal largely characterizes the commentary. The arguments reward our attention nonetheless because of what they tell us about Aristotle’s views on belief-formation and its role in emotional response and motivation. I critique received readings of both passages and provide interpretations that harmonize them with Aristotle’s other views about phantasia, belief, and our capacity to respond emotionally to fiction. I also draw out the implications of my readings for Aristotle’s philosophical psychology. First, belief is sensitive to reasons in a way that phantasia is not. Belief purports to represent a state of affairs taken as actual, to which its content more or less accurately conforms. It is by definition subject to scrutiny, and an agent can be rationally compelled to adopt or discard a belief. Phantasia is under no such constraint; it is not part of the definition of the state that its content purport to represent any actual state of affairs.

Second, forming a belief with the right kind of content is sufficient for having the associated response. When one forms a belief that something in one’s presence is fearsome, nothing more need happen in order for one to feel fear. Phantasia, on the other hand, is not sufficient to provoke a response, because the rational faculty inhibits its motivational ability. In the absence of a functioning rational faculty (as in the case of sub-human animals), phantasia can and does have motive force.

(5) Owen Goldin, Marquette University, “Philoponus (?) on Material and Formal Definitions in the Sciences”

    The  commentary of the second book of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics attributed to Philoponus inaugurates a tradition of understanding APo. 2.8 as showing how a certain dialectical deduction, called a “demonstration” in  a loose sense though falling short of the standards of demonstration, shows how the “material definition” of a kind follows from its “formal definition.”   The core example given is that of DA 1.1, where the what Aristotle calls the definition of the dialectician is here called a formal definition, and what Aristotle calls the definition of the physicist is here called a material definition.  But Philoponus(?)’ account is terse and unclear, and appears to be inconsistent.  Further, a number of problems arise when applying what he says about this “demonstration of a definition” to the example of the various definitions of anger.  In this paper I work through some of the difficulties and offer an account of how a dialectical deduction can reveal the relations that hold among the material, formal, and composite definitions that is cogent, consistent with the text of the commentary, and of philosophical interest.

(6) Robert Greene, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, “Was Aristotle the First Neoplatonist?”

    The attempt to find a definitive interpretation of the Aristotelian texts as a whole has gone on for two thousand years. Is it really possible to reconcile the difficult and contradictory passages in the wide variety of texts that have come down to us as the Aristotelian corpus?  Can we come up with a reasonably coherent general interpretation of his work rather than just scattered insights? Even granting that the latter might still be of value to scholars and scientists in different fields, how much more powerful his ideas would be if we could discover a more unified view of them than we currently have.

Various approaches to the texts have arisen over the centuries. I won’t try to list them all, but we can identify certain recurring themes: (1) Aristotle went through an Entwicklungsgeschichte away from Platonism and wound up like William of Ockham or some other nominalistic British empiricist, or worse (2), as a materialist like Hobbes. (3) Another approach could be called the overdetermined Aristotle: he is harnessed to certain doctrines like the eternality of the biological species in order to preserve the doctrine of natural kinds and essences, and to a certain fixed view of the physical universe. (4) Still another view is the underdetermined Aristotle: the texts are too incomplete, too difficult to understand, and too inconsistent for us ever to produce a satisfactorily coherent view of them. (5) Last in my list is the neoplatonic Aristotle, the version produced by the Islamic tradition that in turn influenced the medieval Christian Aristotelians, most notably St. Thomas Aquinas.

The paper briefly states my reasons for rejecting the first four approaches and argues that, as if anticipating the tradition of Greek, Jewish, Islamic, and Christian commentators, Aristotle himself was the first neoplatonist.

This interpretation is grounded in very familiar passages, among the solidest in the Aristotelian corpus, from De Anima, De Memoria, the Nicomachean Ethics, the Politics, the Poetics, the biological treatises, the Posterior Analytics, and De Interpretatione, as well as the Metaphysics and the Physics. Their mere juxtaposition encourages an imaginative reading of them individually, and conjoined in a “critical mass,” there’s a synergy. A powerful interpretation of Aristotle’s thought emerges that not only connects disparate parts of the corpus, but also allows us to focus his ideas on current research in various disciplines.

The mind, using the active intellect, sees the universal, the essence, in the perceived forms, which of course embody it imperfectly. But through epagoge and aphaeresis, we see them there all the same. Thus, we can do what Socrates in the Meno denies we can do. We don’t need innate ideas. Whether it’s understanding courage or the other virtues in the examples of it that come close to the bull’s eye but never quite reach it, or recognizing the good harper or the good man in less than perfect realizations of the harper or the man; whether one sees the imitation of the ideal in a work of art without actually reaching it, or an imitation of the perfect form of this or that political constitution in existing constitutions, or the real essence of the lion in this lion or that lion, it’s all the same thing.

(7) Robert Hahn, Southern Illinois University, “Has Aristotle Got the Origins of Philosophy Wrong?”

    According to the conventional view, following Aristotle’s lead in Metaphysics A, Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes each postulated an original, primordial substance – hudor, apeiron, aer -- that transforms into diverse appearances without ceasing to be that original stuff. Thus all change must be ultimately and only alteration of “water,” “the unbounded,” or “airy-mist.”  There can be nothing new that comes to be since all appearances are only different expressions of the original underlying substance: Material Monism [MM].    Daniel Graham, however, has argued recently (Explaining the Cosmos: The Ionian tradition of Scientific Philosophy,. Princeton U.P. 2006) that Aristotle got it wrong; while the Ionians did claim that in the beginning there was an original stuff, that original stuff perished in the process of generating other new things: Generating Substance Theory [GST]. And from this new interpretative starting point, Graham offers a new, fascinating reading of Presocratic philosophy whole cloth.  In this paper I wish to focus only on Milesian beginnings, and not the consequences that Graham offers on the condition that his new reading is correct.  Can the case be made that Aristotle's account of Material Monism is mistaken and that, instead, Anaximander and Anaximenes were proponents of GST? 

            Graham offers what he regards to be arguments that are both “historically appropriate” and “philosophically coherent” to make his case, and while exploring his claims I wish to raise a new line of approach as to what also counts as “historically appropriate” and “philosophically coherent” that Graham never considers.  Anaximenes and Anaximander illuminate cosmic processes by appeal to material “felting” [pilêsis]; can archaeological resources lend support to or undermine Graham’s thesis?  And if archaeological resources can lend clarity to traditional debates in classical scholarship, what new light does this shed on what also counts as evidence that is “historically appropriate” and “philosophically coherent?” (Presentation 17 June, afternoon, or 18 June morning)

(8) José Alberto Ross Hernández, Universidad Panamericana, Mexico City, “The Life and Causality of the First Mover.”

    This work aims to prove that there is no problem in accepting that the First Mover, being a noesis noeseos and an object of love, is a final cause. The paper tries to offer an explanation about the compatibility of the classical account of Met. XII and those passages that seem to refer to an efficient cause. The exposition runs as follows: firstly, the main ideas of Met. XII and their classical reconstruction (i.e. from Alexander of Aphrodisias to David Ross). Secondly, the most recent and important objections to this reconstruction. Finally an answer to them, appealing to different parts of the corpus.

(9) Anthony K. Jensen, Xavier University, Cincinnati, “The Unmoved-Mover as Efficient and Final Cause.”

The doctrine of the unmoved mover in Aristotle’s metaphysics has long been the subject of scholastic disagreement. It has been received variously as a primarily theological construct, as the logical extension of his physics, or as the first principle of his metaphysics. The corpus is notoriously difficult to explicate when it comes to even the simplest questions of interpretation. Among these, we might wonder what precisely the prime mover does. How may it be said to be a cause of motion while being itself necessarily unmoved? For what reason does Aristotle maintain that the unmoved mover is alive? If its life’s activity is contemplation, as has long been held as the correct reading, then what does it think and how does such an activity cause motion? Finally, under which of Aristotle’s four causes does the causality of the first mover most appropriately fit?

The scholarship on this problem is daunting. Sarah Broadie, specifically, has put forth some rather unique and controversial view which argues that some of the most commonly held interpretations of the prime mover have relied on Lambda’s presentation of the unmoved mover as having contemplation as its essential activity, a view which she argues is ill conceived for several reasons. The prime mover is essentially an efficient cause of motion, she claims, which corresponds to the train of thought begun in Physics Book VIII; Aristotle’s remarks that illustrate the prime mover as divinely contemplative Nous in Lambda really ought to be understood as an exegetical construct. Broadie attacks some very ancient and accepted views, dating back to the commentaries of Alexander of Aphrodisias and possibly to the Lyceum itself. Alexander’s view has been more recently been defended by Gregory Vlastos and G.E.R. Lloyd, who maintain that the type of causation Aristotle has in mind for his first mover is essentially that of final cause—or perhaps as an exemplary cause. By means of its divine action, which this interpretation takes to be the eternally active contemplation of its own thoughts, the prime mover invokes the wonder of the first sphere of the heavens, thereby compelling it to emulate its perfectly divine action.

In my own attempt to clarify these points of discrepancy, I shall advance the view that Broadie’s interpretation is overly dismissive on points where she thinks Aristotle is merely being illustrative at the expense of logical rigor. I shall maintain that while there are genuine problems in taking the prime mover as both the efficient cause of motion and as an eternally self-contemplating divine entity that is itself also the exemplary cause of motion, these problems do not warrant her conclusion that for whatever reason Aristotle did not seriously mean what he actually does say. Aristotle may not escape Broadie’s objections to the doctrine of the contemplative divinity, but in the final analysis we must assert that he had both efficient and final modes of causality in mind in describing his ultimate principal. (late morning or afternoon)

(10) Andrew Lang, Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, Berkeley, “Chance, the Vain, and Teratology in Physics II 6.”

This paper provides an interpretation of line 197b36 of Aristotle’s Physics: esti de kai touto heteron. tou men gar exo to aition, tou d’entos. (But this too is other, for of the one the cause is outside, of the other within). The first part of the paper shows that in their commentaries Aquinas and Albert the Great mistake the “one” to be the exterior cause tuchê (luck) and the “other” interior cause to be to automaton (chance), which consequently obscures the difference between luck and chance. I argue instead that the “one” cause should include both chance and luck. Further, the “other” should be identified as a deficient material cause, what Albert calls per se frusta (vain through itself), and Aristotle simply calls matên (vain). The second part of the paper compares medieval and contemporary commentaries concerning the meaning of para phusin (contrary to nature), the antecedent of the pronoun touto of line 197b36. Specifically I first examine W.D. Ross’ position which takes  para phusin to be spontaneous generation, following his reading of Aristotle’s Metaphysics 1032a28-32.

Then I compare this interpretation to that of Albert the Great (and also the recent scholarship of Lennox), who takes para phusin as something monstrous, following a more common usage of para phusin in Aristotle’s On the Heavens and On the Generation of Animals. In light of the distinctions made in the first part of the paper, I

contend that the more cogent explanation takes para phusin as monstrous and matân. I end by considering what I see as the unassuming but significant upshot of this reading of 197b36: that Aristotle is opening up the possibility of a teratology in addition to paving the well-know path to teleology in this part of his Physics.

(11) Luis Xavier Lopez Farjeat, Universidad Panamericana, Mexico City, “Aristotle and Avicenna on Animal Thinking”

    One of the problems discussed in the philosophy of mind is whether the perception has cognitive content, both in animals and in humans. If so, a) animals think in some sense, b) thinking does not necessarily depend on a conceptual content. In this paper I will argue that perception has a cognitive content and, therefore, (a) and (b) are true. Some contemporary philosophers have rejected the cognitive status of animal perception. On the contrary, in Ancient and Medieval philosophy, animals and humans share precisely the perception. Therefore, I will confront Aristotle's and Avicenna's points of view with some contemporary philosophers. (preference to present on first day)

(12) Keith E. McPartland, Cornell University and Williams College, “Hypothetical Necessity, Physiological Realization and Functionalism in Aristotle’s Philosophy of Perception.”

In his seminal 1992 article “Is an Aristotelian Philosophy of Mind Still Credible?” Myles Burnyeat argues against a host of contemporary interpreters who claim that Aristotle is a functionalist. Burnyeat’s opponents, most notably Hilary Putnam and Martha Nussbaum, see in Aristotle an attempt to avoid both Platonic dualism and Democritean materialism that resembles the contemporary functionalist’s attempt to put forward a version of non-reductive physicalism. Central to the functionalist interpretation of Aristotle’s theory of perception is the claim that there is a physiological event that realizes an instance of perception by playing a certain causal role in the functioning of the perceiver. Burnyeat sets out to show that this claim is false.

In this paper, I argue that Burnyeat runs together two distinct ways in which we can deny the functionalist interpreters’ central claim. We can deny that there is any physiological event involved in perception, or we can accept that certain physiological events are involved in perception but deny that these events bear the realization relation to instances of perception. I think that Burnyeat is wrong to deny that Aristotle takes perception to involve physiological changes in the perceiving organism. Aristotle’s claims that the form of an object hypothetically necessitates its matter and that the perceptual activities of the soul are inseparable from matter make little sense on Burnyeat’s interpretation of Aristotle’s theory of perception.

Nevertheless, while Aristotle takes instances of perception to involve physiological change, the relation between a physiological change and a perceptual event cannot be realization as typically thought of by functionalists. Realization is typically thought of as a relation between a lower-level event and a higher-level event—for example a certain biological event (c-fiber firing) realizes a psychological event (pain). The functionalist typically thinks that the lower-level event is independently specifiable and that the occurrence of the lower-level event within a suitably organized causal system suffices for the occurrence of the higher-level event. The thought is that the very same sort of lower-level event could have happened in a system with a different causal organization, in which case the higher-level event would not have occurred. Aristotle, however, cannot think that this sort of relation holds between physiological events and instances of perception. Any physiological description of an event will make reference to changes in organs and homoiomerous stuffs. But these organs and stuffs are both ontologically dependent on and definable only in relation to the soul of the organism in which they are found. As a result, there is no sense in which the physiological events involved in perception are independent of psychology in the way the functionalist requires. Furthermore, I argue that there is no reason to think that Aristotle takes any event describable without reference to the soul of the organism to occur when an organism perceives something.

I conclude the paper by examining some ramifications of these arguments for our thoughts about the nature and viability of an Aristotelian philosophy of perception.

(13) Joseph A. Novak, University of Waterloo, “What’s the Matter in Aristotle?”

Much of the current discussion about the notion of substance in Aristotle's Metaphysics and about the nature of sensation and intellection in his On the Soul involves the concept of the immaterial.  Although this concept is known to be a key factor in these analyses, its precise influence is often no more exposed than that of an eminence grise lurking behind the texts themselves. This paper distinguishes a number of senses of the expression "aneu hyles" ("without matter") as it occurs in Aristotle's writings.   Three basic senses are demarcated, two of which are further subdivided.  The purpose for these distinctions is to provide a tool for resolving some of the more enigmatic passages in Aristotle's works where the lack of a more accurate differentiation of meanings vis-à-vis the hylomorphic distinction has generated confusions.

(14) Jeffrey C. Witt, Boston College, “Aristotle’s Theory of Demonstration and its Explanatory Power.”

    A number of scholars have suggested, particularly Jonathan Barnes (“Aristotle’s Theory of Demonstration,” 1975) and M. F. Burnyeat (“Aristotle on Understanding Knowledge,” 1981), that Aristotle’s theory of demonstration is about teaching and learning rather than about conducting scientific research in the world. Moreover they have suggested, Burnyeat in particular, that demonstrations are about coming to learn and understand the explanations for facts discovered in the world. I approach this discussion satisfied with the direction it has taken, but unsatisfied with where it has left off.

    It is my thesis that the course of investigation has not be taken far enough, for no one has asked about the kind of explanation that the theory of demonstration aims to teach. By looking at criteria Aristotle gives for a proper demonstration and at the nature of his critique of Plato’s Forms, I aim to show that the explanation learned through demonstration is concerned purely with an explanation of the logical relations of things and does not show an interest (which we find later in Aristotle, e.g. in the Metaphysics) for the ontological explanation of things undergirding any and all logical relationships. By acknowledging the reality of this other ontological explanation, which takes its basis from our immediate interaction with the natural world and its conceptually rich sensible wholes (Physics I, i-ii), we come to a clearer sense of the explanation with which Aristotle’s theory of demonstration is concerned, and with which it is not concerned. Focused primarily on what logical relations explain, demonstration tends to ignore the reason for these relations in the first place. While such an ontological explanation, may, in the end, never be able to be given scientifically, it remains a meaningful account that arises from the reality of sensible particulars that make up the natural world of our daily experience and our daily life.