Aristotle's Method

I begin with two questions: Where does Aristotle begin his Metaphysics? And where does Aristotle begin his metaphysics? In one way, the first question is easily answered. The Metaphysics begins at Bekker 980a21: All human beings by nature desire to know. This familiar line is the work’s beginning in fact. But it isn’t the only beginning of the Metaphysics, and how it functions as a beginning, both on its own terms and in relation to the other beginnings, is why we have to ask the second question. Why, uniquely among Aristotle’s surviving works, does the Metaphysics have so many, and so many different, starting points? Especially about the series of openings in Alpha through Gamma, I want to ask how the various beginnings are related to one another. How does each serve to introduce, to motivate, and to condition some part or aspect of what will follow? How in turn is each motivated and conditioned by the end apparent to the author but not, at the beginning at least, to the reader? Given their uniqueness in the corpus, what do the beginnings of the work we call the Metaphysics tell us about the aims and methods of Aristotle’s  metaphysics?

This paper discusses Aristotle's definition of the state and of the several constitutions in his Politics I and III. It is argued (1) that the definition of the state must be extracted from two passages of the beginning of the treatise, that (2) the state is defined by its peculiar purpose and (3) that important political theorems in Politics III use this initial definition of the state as a premise. The ultimate purpose of this paper is to contribute to the assessment of the role of definitions within the method of Aristotle's moral and political philosophy.

In this paper, I concentrate on some of the more peculiar, perhaps even polemical, features of Aristotle’s discussions of Plato’s Republic in the second book of the Politics. These features include Aristotle’s several rather sharp or ironic remarks about Socrates and his project in the Republic, his use of rhetorical questions, or his tendency to bring out the most extreme consequences of Socrates’s theory (such as that it will destroy the polis and that it will lead to incestuous relationships). As I argue, some of these polemical features result from the special character of Socrates’ theory that Aristotle criticizes whereas others are consciously aimed at countering the attractive force of Socrates’s image of the ideal city, which can and does appeal to readers over and above its theoretical, purely rational credentials.

In this paper I argue that there is a strong fit between the structure of Aristotle’s inquiry into natural slavery in the Politics and the scientific method described in Posterior Analytics II.1–10. This conclusion may seem difficult to sustain in light of the fact that Aristotle’s definitional inquiry into the natural slave (Pol. I.4) precedes his determination of the existence of natural slaves (Pol. I.5), for he repeatedly asserts in the Posterior Analytics that existence is properly investigated before essence. But this problem can be resolved by noting, first, that different kinds of definitions play different roles in scientific inquiry (An. Post. II.10), and, second, that Aristotle continues to refine his definition of the natural slave into Pol. I.5. On the basis of a close textual analysis, I confirm that Aristotle’s treatment of the natural slave in the Politics exhibits the very sort of existential/definitional progression characteristic of the Posterior Analytics II.1–10 method. I conclude by stressing that this thesis coheres with the importance of definitions in practical as well as theoretical disciplines and is not incompatible with the autonomy of the sciences or the remarks about precision in NE I.3.

This paper examines what Aristotle means when he indicates in NE I.3 that we must rest content with ethical principles that have an outline status. I motivate and explore two alternative interpretations. The first construes the outline principles as outline definitions, i.e. definitions that fail to describe the essences of ethical phenomena in terms familiar by nature. The second interprets the outline principles as sketchy or incomplete guidelines for action. I ultimately defend the second interpretation and draw out what implications it has for the precision of Aristotle’s ethical theory. I conclude by emphasizing that my preferred interpretation does not imply that Aristotle is a particularist about ethical principles.

In this paper I undertake a detailed examination of the philosophical method described in Eudemian Ethics 1.6. Contrary to what many scholars suppose, I argue that this method differs substantively from the famous endoxic method described in Nicomachean Ethics 7.1. Briefly, whereas the Eudemian method aims to discover explanatory definitions of ethical topics by constructing complex deductive arguments which draw on the phainomena for support and illustration, the endoxic method seeks truth about ethical matters by purging endoxa of their epistemic shortcomings via aporetic investigation. D.J. Allan famously compared the Eudemian method to the ‘mathematical pattern of deduction’ exhibited by Euclid’s Elements. However, I argue against this proposal and instead suggest that the Eudemian method is more accurately viewed as an application of the ‘rational’ (kata ton logon) mode of argumentation found throughout the Aristotelian corpus.

There is a debate in the literature as to the place GA V in the overall argument of the treatise. One party argues that bk. V is not, or not a proper, part of the overall argument, the other party argues that it is. I will suggest a view that tries to do justice to the arguments on both sides of the dispute. I will argue that the book's contents are somehow both, an integral part of the overall argument and at the same time dedicated to issues that, strictly speaking, fall outside of the scope of the GA's main topic, which is animal generation as a goal-directed and regularly occurring process. As the title indicates, one way of picturing what I will have to suggest is to think of GA V as a coda, i.e. some kind of tail of the main investigation of the GA. A coda, in the way that I would like to use this term here, is neither a mere appendix nor an integral part of that to which it is attached; it functions rather like an attachment to the main body and thereby signals that the main theme has come to an end. It does so by virtue of the combination of two features: by being a continuation of, and by going beyond, the main theme to which it is an addition.

I intend to show that Aristotle follows some of the main guidelines of the Analytics in his investigation about the nature of the city in Politics I. I assume that Pol. I sets out the causes of the city and that the book responds to the four questions presented in APo. II.1. I demonstrate that Aristotle's methodology follows a φυσικῶς standard. In addition, I assume that dialectic plays a secondary -refutative-role, as opposed to the opinion of Owen (1961) and Barnes (1980) that dialectic was the main methodology applied in practical philosophy.

The main aim of my paper is to analyse Aristotle’s theory of language in the context of his Physics I.1 and via an analysis and an interpretation of this part of his Physics I try to show that (i) the study of human language (logos) significantly falls within the competence of Aristotle’s physics (i.e. natural philosophy), (ii) we can find the results of such (physical) inquiry in Aristotle’s zoological writings, stated in the forms of the first principles, causes and elements of the human speech (logos) and (iii) the analogies (Phys. 184b13-14) made by Aristotle at the very end of the first chapter make better sense if we consider them in the broader context in which Aristotle recognizes language as a complex natural phenomenon we are born into and which has to be not only biologically, but also socially developed through our lives. Hence, I aim towards a more naturalistic reading of Aristotle’s views on language.

De Anima II.4 opens Aristotle’s investigation of the various psychic faculties with the basic capacity shared by plants and animals alike: nutritive soul. He announces a three-step approach to be extended from nutritive soul to perceptive soul and intellect: to define a psychic faculty, first examine the functions it enables, and to understand the functions, examine the correlative objects—in the case of nutrition, food. This paper examines how the methodological prescriptions apply to nutritive soul and, focusing on the function of organic self-maintenance, argues that although the investigation of nutritive soul fits the stated program—food, self-maintenance, nutritive capacity—the order of investigation is the reverse of the order of explanation: the faculty is causally prior to the activity it enables, and the activity is prior to the correlative object, which is merely instrumental to that activity and to the psychic capacity. Moreover, the faculty is causally prior to its functions in three ways, as formal, final, and efficient cause. The paper does not speculate as to how the method extends to other psychic functions, but its analysis raises a question: Will Aristotle’s treatment of the higher faculties fit the prescribed method, and if so how?

Realizamos en primer lugar una presentación de la orientación general del libro en el marco de las investigaciones recientes sobre el tema de investigación. En ese sentido, mostramos sintéticamente el marco de las discusiones y el lugar de la obra en los desarrollos recientes. A continuación, expondremos la estructura general de la obra y luego, con algo de detalle, el contenido de los capítulos. El libro del prestigioso aristotelista italiano Carlo Natali está dedicado al estudio de la Ética Nicomaquea (EN) bajo una renovada línea interpretativa de la filosofía práctica de Aristóteles. Natali reconoce que el punto de partida de su investigación se centró en el orden y la estructura del tratado pero que ello lo condujo a indagar en la metodología del mismo. Recordemos que la discusión sobre este tópico tiene un largo recorrido contemporáneo: la visión que preponderó desde 1960 sugiere que la metodología de la filosofía práctica es prioritariamente dialéctica, es decir, que argumenta sobre la base de opiniones reconocidas, que avanza resolviendo aporías y alcanza su validez por medio de la coherencia. Esta perspectiva, que sostiene la discrepancia entre la prédica metodológica de los

This paper examines the nature of ‘reasonable’ (Eulogos) argumentation in Generation of Animals III.10. Its aim is to develop an alternative to the dialectical construal of reasonable argumentation in Aristotle recently favoured by Robert Bolton. On the basis of a close textual analysis I show that the reasonable arguments deployed in Generation of Animals III.10 do not appeal to endoxa or reputable beliefs per se. Instead, they rely upon general facts (sumbainonta) about animals established by empirical induction. This implies that, contra Bolton, not all reasonable arguments in Aristotle are dialectical; some, in fact, are thoroughly empirical and scientific. I conclude by suggesting that such empirical reasonable arguments even have a place in the De Caelo, the treatise that Bolton primarily focused upon when developing his interpretation.

This paper challenges D. J. Allan's famous claim that Aristotle employs a 'quasi-mathematical' method in the Eudemian Ethics. Allan believes that Aristotle's use of posits introduced by 'hupokeisthō', 'estō', etc. in the treatise is ultimately modeled upon, or at least inspired by, their use in mathematics. However, in this paper I show that there are substantive procedural and epistemological differences between mathematical posits and those in the Eudemian Ethics and that, in any case, there is no textual basis for Allan's thesis. When we look outside of the Eudemian Ethics, we find, in fact, that the use of posits is a rather common argumentative strategy of Aristotle. What specifically motivates his use of posits in the Eudemian Ethics, I suggest, is his desire to meet the criteria for proper philosophical arguments set out at the end of EE I.6.