DOCSLIB.ORG

The University of Chicago Aristotle on the Necessity

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ARISTOTLE ON THE NECESSITY OF WHAT WE KNOW A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE HUMANITIES IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY BY JOSHUA MENDELSOHN CHICAGO, ILLINOIS JUNE 2019 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . iv ABSTRACT . v 1 INTRODUCTION . 1 1.1 Aristotle on what we know ........................... 1 1.2 Previous approaches ............................... 7 1.3 Some first steps toward an answer ....................... 25 1.4 Chapter breakdown ................................ 34 2 ARISTOTLE’S DURABILITY ARGUMENTS . 36 2.1 Knowledge in the Categories ........................... 36 2.1.1 Knowledge as a relative: Categories 7 . 36 2.1.2 Knowledge as a state: Categories 8 ................... 51 2.1.3 The tension between the two principles . 59 2.2 When what is changeable goes out of view: Nicomachean Ethics VI.3 . 66 2.2.1 The sense of “necessity” ......................... 74 2.2.2 A Platonic precursor: Theaetetus 163c–164b . 75 2.3 Durability and demonstration: Posterior Analytics I.6 . 79 2.4 Knowledge of sensible particulars: Metaphysics Ζ.15 . 86 2.5 Taking stock ................................... 88 3 THE OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE . 90 3.1 The introduction of the Forms ......................... 93 3.2 The irrelevance of the Forms .......................... 96 3.3 Essentiality and necessity: Posterior Analytics I.4 . 102 3.3.1 “Of all” and “per se” . 103 3.3.2 Per se predications and necessity . 108 3.3.3 “Universal” ................................112 3.3.4 Demonstrative necessities concerning individuals . 115 3.4 Per se necessity in natural science . 120 3.4.1 Per se necessity in biology: Parts of Animals II.3 . 120 3.4.2 Necessities like the eclipse of the moon: Posterior Analytics I.8 . 126 3.5 Conclusion: Per se necessity as an alternative to the Forms . 131 4 THE SOURCE OF DEMONSTRATIVE NECESSITY . 134 4.1 The structure of Aristotle’s answer: Metaphysics Δ.5 . 135 4.2 Truth concerning incomposites: Metaphysics Θ.10 . 146 4.2.1 The term reading and the existential reading . 151 4.3 Incomposites as “things with no other cause” . 160 4.4 Truths about incomposites and demonstrative principles . 172 4.4.1 Proper principles and per se predications . 173 ii 4.4.2 Per se truths and truths about incomposites . 177 4.4.3 Axioms ..................................180 4.5 Incomposites in the natural sciences? . 184 4.6 Appendix: The role of the Principle of Non-Contradiction in demonstration 190 5 NECESSITY AND OUR KNOWLEDGE OF NATURE . 193 5.1 Leunissen on necessity and teleology . 196 5.2 Aristotle on necessity in nature: Parts of Animals I.1 . 200 5.3 Truth for the most part as interrupted necessity: Prior Analytics I.13 . 208 5.4 Necessity and exceptions in natural and mathematical sciences . 219 5.5 Necessity and complexity: Physics II.9 . 225 CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK . 229 APPENDIX: EPISTĒMĒ AS UNDERSTANDING . 232 A.1 Burnyeat’s proposal ................................232 A.2 Knowledge and explanation ............................238 A.3 Further doubts about epistēmē as understanding . 240 BIBLIOGRAPHY . 244 INDEX LOCORUM . 260 iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am enormously indebted to each of the members of my committee (Martha Nussbaum, Marko Malink, Michael Kremer and Agnes Callard) for their patience, flexibility, probing feedback and tireless support. Over the course of writing this dissertation, the Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy Workshop at the University of Chicago has provided not only exceptionally thoughtful feedback but a supportive community. I also received im- portant feedback on chapter two from an audience at the 2017 Annual Conference of the Australasian Association of Philosophy and on chapter four from the audience of the 2018 Marquette Summer Seminar on Aristotle and the Aristotelian Tradition. I am grateful for conversations with Serena Lai, Arnold Brooks, Dhananjay Jagannathan, Elana Co- may del Junco, Rik Peters, Josh Trubowitz, Matt Teichman, Ryan Simonelli, Martijn Wallage, Stephen Cunniff, Nic Koziolek, Justin Vlastis, Chris Hauser, Christoph Roser, Whitney Schwab, Toomas Lott, Dominic Dold, James Lee, Molly Brown, Hannah McK- eown, Tama Coutts, David Bronstein, Anubav Vasudevan, Gabriel Lear, Robert Bolton, Anselm Mueller, Emily Katz and other faculty and graduate students at the University of Chicago and New York University. I owe a special thanks to Bronwyn Lommel, who read the entire manuscript and pointed out numerous typographical errors and mistakes. iv ABSTRACT Aristotle holds that we only have scientific knowledge of what cannot be otherwise. This may seem to imply that we only have scientific knowledge of changeless mathematical truths and other products of a priori reflection. Yet Aristotle is a pioneer of natural science, and exhorts us to study the natural world, which he himself characterizes as a realm of contingency, exception and chance. This dissertation asks why Aristotle holds the view that we only know what cannot be otherwise and whether he is able to reconcile this view with his engagement in and esteem for natural science, especially the study of animals. Aristotle holds that we only have scientific knowledge of necessities, I argue, as a way to reconcile his view that knowledge requires persisting agreement with the world and his view that scientific knowledge remains stable over time. Properly understood, Aristotle’s claim does not pose a threat to the possibility of natural science but rather is at the heart of an attempt to explain how the study of nature is possible. We can have scientific knowledge about changeable and capricious things because the content of our knowledge strictly extends only to those facts about them that remain perpetually true on account of their essences. v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Aristotle on what we know Aristotle claims that anything that is known “cannot be otherwise,”1 or is “necessary.”2 He frequently adds that the objects of knowledge are universal,3 eternal,4 and subject neither to generation nor corruption.5 The person who has knowledge in an unqualified sense must grasp what she knows as necessary.6 She must grasp the facts that constitute her knowledge as necessary truths that follow necessarily from the most fundamental truths, or “principles,” of the domain to which her knowledge belongs.7 This requires that she has analyzed the structure of what her knowledge is about “right down to its elements,”8 and implies that the items of our knowledge can be represented as the premises and conclusions of deductive proofs9 that articulate the structure of some genus or domain of study.10 Aristotle infers that there is strictly no knowledge of contingencies,11 of what occurs by 1. Post. An. I.2, 71b.12, 15–16, I.4, 73a.21, I.6, 74b.6. Translations of Aristotle are my own except where noted. Translations listed in the bibliography have however been con- sulted and occasionally phrases are borrowed without further explicit attribution. Epistēmē and epistasthai are translated with “knowledge” and “know”. On the translation of these terms, see section 1.2 below and the Appendix. 2. Post. An. I.33, 89a.10, I.4, 73a.22. 3. Post. An. I.31, 87b.38–39. 4. Nic. Eth. VI.3, 1139b.23. Cf. Post. An. I.8, 75b.22–24, I.31, 87b.28–39. 5. Nic. Eth. VI.3, 1139b.24. 6. Post. An. I.33, 89a.33–37. 7. Post. An. I.9, 75b.4–7. 8. Phys. I.1, 184a.14. 9. Post. An. I.2, 71b.16–23. 10. Post. An. I.10, 76b.13, I.28, 87a.38–87b.4. 11. Post. An. I.33, 88b.32–34. 1 chance,12 of the corruptible and the perishable,13 or of particulars at all.14 Of particulars there is merely “perception,”15 and of what can be otherwise there is no knowledge but only “belief.”16 Anyone who lacks a demonstrative proof of what they know from first principles or a grasp of its essence has knowledge only in a “sophistical”17 or “accidental”18 way. Aristotle’s reasons for these claims, which have been a sticking point for both his- torical19 and contemporary readers,20 are not easy to discern. The Posterior Analytics, especially the first book, develops these ideas by elaborating what is required of a proof so 12. Post. An. I.30, 87b.19. 13. Post. An. I.8, 75b.24–25, Nic. Eth. VI.3, 1139b.22–24. 14. Post. An. I.18, 81b.6–7, Rhet. Ι.2, 1356b.32–33. Cf. Post. An. I.31, 87b.28–39 and Met. Ζ.15, 1029b.27–1040a.5 (where, however, the point is limited to sensible particulars). 15. Post. An. I.18, 81b.6, I.33, 87b.29–30; cf. Top. II.8, 114a.23. 16. Post. An. I.33, 89a.30–35, Met. Ζ.15, 1039b.32–1040a.1. 17. Post. An. I.2, 71b.9–10. 18. Post. An. I.2, 71b.10, Nic. Eth. VI.3, 1139b.35. 19. Philosophers in the Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions struggled with the conse- quences of these claims. Avicenna received censure for his claim that God knows particulars only “in a universal way,” which al-Ghazālī deemed irreligious in The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Marmura 2000, 134; Marmura 1962, 299). Peter Adamson has argued that Avicenna’s position was not a special theological doctrine but rather simply the application of a general Aristotelian theory of knowledge in the divine case: “the reason God does not ‘know particulars’ is very simple: there is no such thing as knowledge of particulars. This holds true for humans no less than for God” (Adamson 2005, 294). William of Auvergne struggled with the apparent consequence that God could not know the acts and prayers of individual people (Marenbon 1987, 113), while Henry of Ghent sought to explain the possibility of knowledge of a world that God could alter at will (Marenbon 1987, 148–49).
Recommended publications
  • Aristotle's Assertoric Syllogistic and Modern Relevance Logic*

    Aristotle's Assertoric Syllogistic and Modern Relevance Logic*

    Aristotle’s assertoric syllogistic and modern relevance logic* Abstract: This paper sets out to evaluate the claim that Aristotle’s Assertoric Syllogistic is a relevance logic or shows significant similarities with it. I prepare the grounds for a meaningful comparison by extracting the notion of relevance employed in the most influential work on modern relevance logic, Anderson and Belnap’s Entailment. This notion is characterized by two conditions imposed on the concept of validity: first, that some meaning content is shared between the premises and the conclusion, and second, that the premises of a proof are actually used to derive the conclusion. Turning to Aristotle’s Prior Analytics, I argue that there is evidence that Aristotle’s Assertoric Syllogistic satisfies both conditions. Moreover, Aristotle at one point explicitly addresses the potential harmfulness of syllogisms with unused premises. Here, I argue that Aristotle’s analysis allows for a rejection of such syllogisms on formal grounds established in the foregoing parts of the Prior Analytics. In a final section I consider the view that Aristotle distinguished between validity on the one hand and syllogistic validity on the other. Following this line of reasoning, Aristotle’s logic might not be a relevance logic, since relevance is part of syllogistic validity and not, as modern relevance logic demands, of general validity. I argue that the reasons to reject this view are more compelling than the reasons to accept it and that we can, cautiously, uphold the result that Aristotle’s logic is a relevance logic. Keywords: Aristotle, Syllogism, Relevance Logic, History of Logic, Logic, Relevance 1.
  • UNDERSTANDING MATHEMATICS to UNDERSTAND PLATO -THEAETEUS (147D-148B Salomon Ofman

    UNDERSTANDING MATHEMATICS to UNDERSTAND PLATO -THEAETEUS (147D-148B Salomon Ofman

    UNDERSTANDING MATHEMATICS TO UNDERSTAND PLATO -THEAETEUS (147d-148b Salomon Ofman To cite this version: Salomon Ofman. UNDERSTANDING MATHEMATICS TO UNDERSTAND PLATO -THEAETEUS (147d-148b. Lato Sensu, revue de la Société de philosophie des sciences, Société de philosophie des sciences, 2014, 1 (1). hal-01305361 HAL Id: hal-01305361 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01305361 Submitted on 20 Apr 2016 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. UNDERSTANDING MATHEMATICS TO UNDERSTAND PLATO - THEAETEUS (147d-148b) COMPRENDRE LES MATHÉMATIQUES POUR COMPRENDRE PLATON - THÉÉTÈTE (147d-148b) Salomon OFMAN Institut mathématique de Jussieu-PRG Histoire des Sciences mathématiques 4 Place Jussieu 75005 Paris [email protected] Abstract. This paper is an updated translation of an article published in French in the Journal Lato Sensu (I, 2014, p. 70-80). We study here the so- called ‘Mathematical part’ of Plato’s Theaetetus. Its subject concerns the incommensurability of certain magnitudes, in modern terms the question of the rationality or irrationality of the square roots of integers. As the most ancient text on the subject, and on Greek mathematics and mathematicians as well, its historical importance is enormous.
  • Mapping the Meaning of Knowledge in Design Research Kristina Niedderer University of Hertfordshire

    Mapping the Meaning of Knowledge in Design Research Kristina Niedderer University of Hertfordshire

    V.2:2 April 2007 www.designresearchsociety.org Design Research Society ISSN 1752-8445 Mapping the Meaning of Knowledge in Design Research Kristina Niedderer University of Hertfordshire Knowledge plays a vital role in our life This question has arisen for design in Table of Contents: in that it reflects how we understand the UK, as well as more generally for the world around us and thus deter- creative and practice-led disciplines Articles: 1 Mapping the Meaning of Knowledge mines how we act upon it. In this sense, (CPDs), because research regulations in Design Research knowledge is of particular importance and requirements in the UK remain Kristina Niedderer for designers because they act to shape silent about what knowledge and our world. Conventionally, knowledge understanding mean in the context of 3 Call for Papers: Design Research creation has been assumed by (design) their specifications while implicitly pri- Quarterly research. However developments of oritising propositional knowledge over Case Studies in Research: Knowledge using practice within research have knowledge that cannot be expressed in and Inquiry pointed to knowledge creation within that form (Niedderer 2007). and through practice. This has raised This has led to a number of prob- Listings: the question of the meaning, role and lems concerning the role and format 14 Current Research in Design: format of knowledge in both research of knowledge in research and practice ToCs from Leading Design Journals and practice, and about the compatibil- in the UK. For example, because of the ity between knowledge of research and language-based mode of proposition- 21 Upcoming Events Worldwide practice.
  • Marko Malink (NYU)

    Marko Malink (NYU)

    Demonstration by reductio ad impossibile in Posterior Analytics 1.26 Marko Malink (New York University) Contents 1. Aristotle’s thesis in Posterior Analytics 1. 26 ................................................................................. 1 2. Direct negative demonstration vs. demonstration by reductio ................................................. 14 3. Aristotle’s argument from priority in nature .............................................................................. 25 4. Priority in nature for a-propositions ............................................................................................ 38 5. Priority in nature for e-, i-, and o-propositions .......................................................................... 55 6. Accounting for Aristotle’s thesis in Posterior Analytics 1. 26 ................................................... 65 7. Parts and wholes ............................................................................................................................. 77 References ............................................................................................................................................ 89 1. Aristotle’s thesis in Posterior Analytics 1. 26 At the beginning of the Analytics, Aristotle states that the subject of the treatise is demonstration (ἀπόδειξις). A demonstration, for Aristotle, is a kind of deductive argument. It is a deduction through which, when we possess it, we have scientific knowledge (ἐπιστήμη). While the Prior Analytics deals with deduction in
  • Phenomenal Concepts and the Problem of Acquaintance

    Phenomenal Concepts and the Problem of Acquaintance

    Paul Livingston Phenomenal Concepts and the Problem of Acquaintance Abstract: Some contemporary discussion about the explanation of consciousness substantially recapitulates a decisive debate about ref- erence, knowledge, and justification from an earlier stage of the ana- lytic tradition. In particular, I argue that proponents of a recently popular strategy for accounting for an explanatory gap between phys- ical and phenomenal facts — the so-called ‘phenomenal concept strategy’ — face a problem that was originally fiercely debated by Schlick, Carnap, and Neurath. The question that is common to both the older and the contemporary discussion is that of how the presence or presentation of phenomenal experiences can play a role in justify- ing beliefs or judgments about them. This problem is, moreover, the same as what was classically discussed as the problem of acquain- tance. Interestingly, both physicalist and non-physicalist proponents of the phenomenal concept strategy today face this problem. I con- sider briefly some recent attempts to solve it and conclude that, although it is prima facie very plausible that acquaintance exists, we have, as yet, no good account of it. My aim in this paper is to demonstrate that proponents of a recently popular physicalist strategy for explaining consciousness — what has been called the phenomenal concept strategy — share with certain anti-physicalist phenomenal realists a common problem, which was also a problem for Schlick, Carnap, and Neurath in the days of the Vienna Circle. Though it has implications for ontology and metaphys- ics, this problem is essentially one about justification: how can judg- ments, claims, or beliefs about phenomenal experience be justified, at Correspondence: Email: [email protected] Journal of Consciousness Studies, 20, No.
  • The INPR Journal. Volume I, Fall 2020

    The INPR Journal. Volume I, Fall 2020

    Crossing: The INPR Journal. Volume I, Fall 2020. Editor in chief Emmanuel Falque Editorial coordinators William L. Connelly Domenico Cambria Editorial committee Tamsin Jones Adam Graves Martin Koci William Woody S.J. Crossing: The INPR Journal. Volume I. November 2020. 26 Rue d’Assas 75006 Paris, France. ISSN (online): 2644-9242 DOI: 10.21428/8766eb43.b95a977c Web: https://inprjournal.pubpub.org/ http://www.network-inpr.org/ Email: [email protected] Crossing : une étape fondatrice de l’INPR (English Translation on Page III) L’international Network of Philosophy of Religion (INPR) est un réseau international de jeunes philosophes et théologiens (doctorants, post-doctorants, jeunes professeurs) réunis pour travailler ensemble autour de la question de Dieu et de sa pertinence dans un monde contemporain sécularisé. Essentiellement appuyé sur la philosophie continentale, mais pas exclusivement, il s’efforce d’être au service d’un renouveau de la philosophie et de la théologie chez les jeunes générations pour aujourd’hui. Loin de rester chacune sur leur pré-carré, philosophie et théologie sont appelées aujourd’hui à se croiser et à davantage se féconder mutuellement, dans le respect de la distinction des disciplines. Et les chercheurs de différents pays, en particulier ceux qui feront la pensée de demain, doivent eux aussi mieux dialoguer, sûrs que dans la confrontation des idées se fomente le terreau d’où naissent de nouvelles pensées. Inauguré en 2015, ce réseau international compte aujourd’hui plus d’une centaine de membres personnellement engagés, de plus de dix nationalités différentes, et venus en particulier d’Europe et des États-Unis. Les membres qui constituent ce réseau ont déjà fait la preuve par plusieurs séminaires (grands colloques ou séminaires doctoraux et post-doctoraux) du bien-fondé de leur démarche commune.
  • C.S. Peirce's Abduction from the Prior Analytics

    C.S. Peirce's Abduction from the Prior Analytics

    Providence College DigitalCommons@Providence Community Scholar Publications Providence College Community Scholars 7-1996 C.S. Peirce's Abduction from the Prior Analytics William Paul Haas Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/comm_scholar_pubs Haas, William Paul, "C.S. Peirce's Abduction from the Prior Analytics" (1996). Community Scholar Publications. 2. https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/comm_scholar_pubs/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Providence College Community Scholars at DigitalCommons@Providence. It has been accepted for inclusion in Community Scholar Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Providence. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WILLIAM PAUL HAAS July 1996 C.S. PEIRCE'S ABDUCTION FROM THE PRIOR ANALYTICS In his Ancient Formal Logic. Professor Joseph Bochenski finds Aristotle's description of syllogisms based upon hypotheses to be "difficult to understand." Noting that we do not have the treatise which Aristotle promised to write, Bochenski laments the fact that the Prior Analytics, where it is treated most explicitly, "is either corrupted or (which is more probable) was hastily written and contains logical errors." (1) Charles Sanders Peirce wrestled with the same difficult text when he attempted to establish the Aristotelian roots of his theory of abductive or hypothetical reasoning. However, Peirce opted for the explanation that the fault was with the corrupted text, not with Aristotle's exposition. Peirce interpreted the text of Book II, Chapter 25 thus: Accordingly, when he opens the next chapter with the word ' Ajray (¿y-q a word evidently chosen to form a pendant to 'Errctyuyrj, we feel sure that this is what he is coming to.
  • Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning

    Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning

    Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning Interdisciplinary Perspectives from the Humanities and Social Sciences Volume 24 General Editor Shahid Rahman (Lille, UMR 8163) Managing Editor Juan Redmond (Universidad de Valparaiso, Chile) Area Editors Argumentation and Pragmatics Frans H. van Eemeren (Amsterdam) Zoe McConaughey (Lille, UMR 8163) Tony Street (Faculty of Divinity, Cambridge) John Woods (British Columbia/King’s College) Argumentation and Rhetoric Gabriel Galvez-Behar (Lille, UMR 8529) Leone Gazziero (Lille) André Laks, (Princeton/Panamericana) Ruth Webb (Lille, UMR 8163) Decision Theory, Mathematics, Economy Jacques Dubucs (IHPST-Paris 1) Karine Chemla (CNRS, SPHERE UMR7219, Université de Paris) Sven Ove Hansson (Stockholm) Cognitives Sciences. Computer Sciences Yann Coello (Lille) Eric Gregoire (CRIL-Lens) Henry Prakken (Utrecht) François Recanati (ENS, Paris) Epistemology and Philosophy of Science Gerhard Heinzmann (Nancy) Sonja Smets (ILLC, Amsterdam) Göran Sundholm (Leiden) Logic Michel Crubellier (Lille, UMR 8163) Dov Gabbay (King’s College) Tero Tulenheimo (Lille, UMR 8163) Political Science and Sociology Jean-Gabriel Contamin (Lille) Franck Fischer (Rutgers) Josh Ober (Stanford) Marc Pichard (Lille, MESHS-Nord Pas de Calais) Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning (LAR) explores links between the Humanities and Social Sciences, with theories (including decision and action theory) drawn from the cognitive sciences, economics, sociology, law, logic, and the philosophy of science. Its main ambitions are to develop a theoretical framework
  • Allan Gotthelf's Teleology, First Principles, And

    Allan Gotthelf's Teleology, First Principles, And

    Reason Papers Vol. 35, no. 1 Review Essays Review Essay: Allan Gotthelf’s Teleology, First Principles, and Scientific Method in Aristotle’s Biology and James G. Lennox and Robert Bolton’s (ed.) Being, Nature, and Life in Aristotle Owen Goldin Marquette University Although readers of Reason Papers are no doubt familiar with Allan Gotthelf’s extensive efforts aimed at a more widespread appreciation of Ayn Rand’s philosophical thought, he is best known among historians of philosophy and science for his contributions to the understanding of Aristotle’s biological works, which have shed much light on Aristotle’s scientific methodology, epistemology, and metaphysics. Two new books allow us to take account of Gotthelf’s contributions to Aristotelian studies. The first is a collection of Gotthelf’s most important papers on Aristotle.1 Although the papers were written independently, there is little superfluous repetition, and taken together they constitute a comprehensive and coherent account of Aristotle’s biology and its philosophical significance. The second, which has its origin in a 2004 conference in Gotthelf’s honor, is a collection of papers on Aristotle, most of which focus on themes that Gotthelf himself has discussed.2 Some of the papers further his thought, taking it in new directions; others depart from Gotthelf in philosophically interesting ways. Gotthelf believes that one of his most important contributions to Aristotelian studies lies in his account of teleology in the biological writings. For this he gives credit to Rand (p. viii) (who personally led Gotthelf to the study of Aristotle), for she had argued that scientific explanation must identify potentials inherent in natures.
  • THE CONDEMNATION of 1277 the First Known Case of Academic

    THE CONDEMNATION of 1277 the First Known Case of Academic

    CHAPTER TWO THE CONDEMNATION OF 1277 Th e fi rst known case of academic condemnation at Oxford occurred in 1277. On March 18th of that year Robert Kilwardby, Archbishop of Canterbury, condemned as erroneous a series of propositions that were being upheld in the arts faculty involving grammar, logic, and natural philosophy.1 Th is event and its sequels, the Condemnation of 1284 and the Condemnation of Richard Knapwell, form the most examined ele- ment in the history of academic condemnation at Oxford, with the possible exception of the events around the condemnation of John Wyclif and the Oxford Lollards in 1381–82. Th ere is a large body of literature on this topic, and various aspects of it have been hotly debated over the past century.2 1 Th e condemnation, including the propositions, can be found in Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, ed. H. Denifl e and E. Chatelain, (Paris, 1889–97), 1:558–60. It also exists (with minor variations in the wording of the propositions) in the Collectio errorum in Anglia et Parisius condemnatorum; see Henryk Anzulewicz, “Eine weitere Überlieferung der Collectio errorum in Anglia et Parisius condemnatorum im Ms. Lat. Fol. 456 der Staatsbibliothek Preussicher Kulturbesitz zu Berlin,” in Franziskanische Studien 74 (1992), pp. 375–99, at pp. 380–81. Th ere also exists a letter from Kilwardby to Peter of Confl ans in which he defends his action; Franz Ehrle, “Ein Schreiben des Erzbishofs von Canterbury Robert Kilwardby zur Rechtfertigung seiner Lehrverurtheilung vom 18. Marz 1277,” in Archiv für Literatur- und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters, ed. H.
  • Kilwardby, Robert 00

    Kilwardby, Robert 00

    K 16/5/05 4:13 pm Page 33 KILWARDBY, ROBERT 00 appearing in Muslim Spain within his lifetime. Here, his Arab Civilization: Challenges and Response. Edited by original tables were studied by *Maslama of Madrid and G.N. Atiyeh and I.M. Oweiss. 98–111. Albany: SUNY his pupils whose adaptation, more accurate than the Press, 1988. original, adjusted the tables to make them useful to Van Dalen, Benno. “Al-Khwarismi’s Astronomical Tables astronomers in the West. This version was then translated Revisited.” In Samso and Casulleras, I: 195–252. MICHAEL C. WEBER by *Adelard of Bath and *Pedro Alfonso, and it is only this Latin version that survives complete whereas in Arabic only selections from the original survive. Al-Khwarizmi’s two other surviving works are the Geography and the Extraction of the Jewish Calendar. It KILWARDBY, ROBERT appears that the Geography represents an important Robert Kilwardby died at the papal court in Viterbo, advance over *Ptolemy’s work of the same name. It has Italy, on September 11, 1279. Although aspects of his been speculated that al-Khwarizmi’s work was based on career as an intellectual and churchman are known, noth- a world map constructed by a collection of scholars for ing is really known about his early life except that he al-Ma’mun; the Geography represents superior knowl- studied at Paris. It would be nice to know if he studied edge of the Islamic lands and the areas visited by Muslim with the natural philosopher Richard Fishacre at Oxford traders and merchants. The work on the Jewish calendar in the early 1240s, for instance: it is possible and some of is curious.
  • Catalogue of Titles of Works Attributed to Aristotle

    Catalogue of Titles of Works Attributed to Aristotle

    Catalogue of Titles of works attributed by Aristotle 1 To enhance readability of the translations and usability of the catalogues, I have inserted the following bold headings into the lists. These have no authority in any manuscript, but are based on a theory about the composition of the lists described in chapter 3. The text and numbering follows that of O. Gigon, Librorum deperditorum fragmenta. PART ONE: Titles in Diogenes Laertius (D) I. Universal works (ta kathalou) A. The treatises (ta syntagmatika) 1. The dialogues or exoterica (ta dialogika ex terika) 2. The works in propria persona or lectures (ta autopros pa akroamatika) a. Instrumental works (ta organika) b. Practical works (ta praktika) c. Productive Works (ta poi tika) d. Theoretical works (ta the r tika) . Natural philosophy (ta physiologia) . Mathematics (ta math matika) B. Notebooks (ta hypomn matika) II. Intermediate works (ta metaxu) III. Particular works (ta merika) PART TWO: Titles in the Vita Hesychii (H) This list is organized in the same way as D, with two exceptions. First, IA2c “productive works” has dropped out. Second, there is an appendix, organized as follows: IV. Appendix A. Intermediate or Particular works B. Treatises C. Notebooks D. Falsely ascribed works PART THREE: Titles in Ptolemy al-Garib (A) This list is organized in the same way as D, except it contains none of the Intermediate or Particular works. It was written in Arabic, and later translated into Latin, and then reconstructed into Greek, which I here translate. PART FOUR: Titles in the order of Bekker (B) The modern edition contains works only in IA2 (“the works in propria persona”), and replaces the theoretical works before the practical and productive, as follows.