DOCSLIB.ORG

Aristotle's Theory of Actuality SUNY Series in Ancient Greek Philosophy Author : Bechler, Z

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Aristotle's Theory of Actuality SUNY Series in Ancient Greek Philosophy Author : Bechler, Z title : Aristotle's Theory of Actuality SUNY Series in Ancient Greek Philosophy author : Bechler, Z. publisher : State University of New York Press isbn10 | asin : 0791422399 print isbn13 : 9780791422397 ebook isbn13 : 9780585046068 language : English subject Aristotle, Philosophy of nature. publication date : 1995 lcc : B491.N3B43 1995eb ddc : 113 subject : Aristotle, Philosophy of nature. cover Aristotle's Theory Of Actuality cover-0 SUNY Series in Ancient Greek Philosophy Anthony Preus, Editor cover-1 Aristotle's Theory OF Actuality Zev Bechler State University of New York Press cover-2 Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 1995 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, address State University of New York Press, State University Plaza, Albany, N.Y., 12246 Production by Diane Ganeles Marketing by Fran Keneston Composition by Kelby Bowers, Compublishing, Cincinnati, Ohio Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bechler, Z. Aristotle's theory of actuality / Zev Bechler. p. cm.(SUNY series in ancient Greek philosophy) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-2239-9 (alk. paper).ISBN 0-7914-2240-2 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Aristotle. 2. Philosophy of nature. I. Title. II. Series. B491.N3B42 1995 185dc20 94-1045 CIP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 cover-3 To Niza Dolav For her special friendship cover-4 Contents Acknowledgments xi Introduction: The Idea of Anti-Informationism 1. Tradition: Forms into Forces 1 2. Nonseparability and its Consequences 2 3. A Note on the Translations 4 Chapter One: Aristotle's Explanation of Natural Motion 1.1. The natural motion puzzle and the two potentialities 5 1.1.1. Soul as first actuality 6 1.1.2. The definition of motion and the aspects of the potential 8 1.1.3. The two potentials 11 1.1.4. Genuine potentiality is one with actuality 12 1.1.5. Consistency-potentials are noneffectual and nonreal 18 1.1.6. A role for consistency-potentials: Dispute with the Megarians 21 1.1.7. Plato's Forms and the nature of consistency-potential 23 1.1.8. Aristotle's principle of the priority of the actual 25 1.2. The explanation of natural motion 28 1.2.1. Is everything moved by another in Aristotle's physics? 28 1.2.2. The official interpretation and the energizer theory 30 1.2.3. The natural motion of living creatures is uncaused motion 32 1.2.4. Is "nature" the mover in the natural motion of the elements? 34 1.2.5. How can potentiality be the mover in natural motion? 36 1.2.6. Practical syllogism and the necessity of action 39 1.2.7. Desire and motion 42 cover-5 Page viii 1.2.8. The mover in natural motion is a logical mover 44 1.3. Logical causality and teleology 47 1.3.1. Form and end are logical causes 47 1.3.2. Efficient causes and logical causality 50 1.3.3. Is causal necessity really different from teleological necessity? 52 1.3.4. Hypothetical and categorical necessities are the same 53 1.3.5. Means and ends are strictly convertible 55 1.3.6. Aristotle's teleology "strictly speaking" 56 Chapter Two: Logical Causality and Priority of the Actual: Consequences and Illustrations 2.1. Coincidence, relationality and the ontology of potentiality 59 2.1.1. Coincidentality entails non-causality 59 2.1.2. Why is the coincidental necessarily causeless? 62 2.1.3. The nullity of the coincidental 63 2.1.4. Clustering, instantaneity and the relativity of the coincidental 65 2.1.5. The identity of the relative and the coincidental 68 2.1.6. Lack and the coincidental 69 2.1.7. The potentiality connection 73 2.2. The First Mover fiasco 76 2.2.1. The ontology of Met 12 76 2.2.2. Redundancy: "Why need we seek any further principles?" 77 2.2.3. Contradicting the priority of the actual 79 2.2.4. How is separate form possible? 81 2.3. Substance and causality 84 2.3.1. The unity of substance 84 2.3.2. The unity of causal action 89 2.3.3. The inconsistency of Aristotle's actualism 92 2.3.4. The notion of particular-form: A.C. Lloyd 95 2.4. Logical determinism 102 2.4.1. Plenitude and the necessity of eternal motion 102 2.4.2. The necessity of all states 104 2.4.3. Necessity into contingency 107 2.4.4. The future sea-battle: Physical indeterminism and logical 109 determinism page_viii Page ix 2.5. The continuum 112 2.5.1. The instantaneity of actualization 112 2.5.2. The nature of the infinite 116 2.5.3. Potential infinity and Zeno's Achilles 120 2.5.4. Homogeneous analysis and the impossibility of continuous change 122 2.5.5. Continuous motion and abrupt change 126 Chapter Three: Necessity, Syllogism and Scientific Knowledge 3.1. Two kinds of necessity 129 3.2. Deductive necessity and group inclusion 130 3.3. Propositional necessary truth 132 3.4. Deductive necessity and the circularity of the syllogism 134 3.5. Accepting circularity 1: Syllogistic demonstration 135 3.6. Nominalism and Aristotle's essentialism: Seeing the universal 137 3.7. Aristotle's demon: Potentiality and the scientific syllogism 141 3.8. Accepting circularity 2: Knowing that and what and why 143 3.9. Convertibility and noninformativity 146 3.10. Necessity by construction 148 3.11. Objective identity and noninformativity 151 3.12. Aristotle on noninformative questions 153 3.13. Noninformativity and error 155 3.14. Summary 157 Chapter Four: Inconsistent Potentials: The Philosophy of Mathematics 4.1. Some conditions for a philosophy of mathematics 159 4.2. The potentiality of mathematical objects 160 4.3. The puzzle of the exactness of mathematics 162 4.4. Qua and the relativity of the essence-matter distinction 164 4.5. Construction and absolute potentiality 166 4.6. Objections to a constructionist interpretation: (1) Annas 170 4.7. Objections to a constructionist interpretation: (2) Lear 171 4.8. Objections to a constructionist interpretation: (3) Hussey 175 4.9. Intelligible matter: The triangle is neither a "this," nor a triangle, nor 177 triangular 4.10. The nondenotativity of mathematics according to Aristotle's philosophy: A 179 short review 4.11. The a priority of Aristotle's philosophy of essence and mathematics 181 4.12. The formality and emptiness of mathematics according to Aristotle's 183 philosophy 4.13. The a priority of qua and the nature of mixed science 184 4.14. Aristotle's concept of universal mathematics 186 page_ix Page x Notes 190 Bibliography 231 Index of Passages 259 General Index 267 page_x Page xi Acknowledgments During the ten years in which this work has been in the making, it was continuously rewritten, expanded, and contracted. Its earliest version was read by my colleague and friend, Shabtai Unguru, and criticized in many heated discussions. I thank him for his patience and insistence on proof for everything. Special thanks go to Antony Lloyd who so freely and generously donated his time and deep scholarship to a complete stranger. His detailed criticism of the first half of the book helped me steer clear of many errors, clarify many arguments, and drastically readjust the book's perspective. Niza Dolav, my close friend and assistant during all these years, gathered (sometimes unearthed) the literature I needed, typed the infinite number of my longhand drafts and the whole book several times as it metamorphosed. She created the whole apparatus, gave the book its final look before going to the publisher, and finally proofread both galleys and the page proofs. I wouldn't have completed the book but for her devotion and determination. My wife Nira has been my daily love-support system and no words can express my gratitude to her. page_xi Page 1 Introduction: The Idea Of Anti-Informationism 1. Tradition: Forms into Forces Our traditional perception of Aristotle's philosophy of nature takes it as a kind of dynamics, a theory of forces that cause the motions of the world. This tradition interprets his concept of ''nature" by taking what he calls "beginning" or "principle" or "origin" (arche *) as some kind of a force, and the "internal origin of motion" (arche* kineseos* en auto(i)*, which is Aristotle's formal definition of "nature") as "a power, resident in natural objects" (Ross, 1936: 25). This initial step is next followed by linking the "internal power" with potentiality for motion, and potentiality (dunamis) now becomes a power or force resident in natural objects, causing their natural motions. From such humble beginnings, this traditional reading of Aristotle molds him into a sobered-up Plato, namely, a Plato without a world of Ideas. Aristotle took these, so it is suggested, and transformed them into indwelling entities residing within natural objects. These, in their new role, he renamed "forms," but apart from these two variations he left them intact as he found them in Plato. In particular, Aristotle's forms remain causative as "powers, resident in natural bodies" (Ross, ibid.) acting on these bodies from within as their immediate movers in their natural motions. "Nature or essence" is the indwelling form that is "an internal power of originating movement" as Ross put it (ibid: 24), or as a recent scholar writes, it is the "developmental force which impels it [the body] toward the realization of its form .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Aristotelian Metaphysics: Essence and Ground
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Helsingin yliopiston digitaalinen arkisto Editorial Aristotelian Metaphysics: Essence and Ground Riin Sirkela, Tuomas Tahkob aDepartment of Philosophy, University of Vermont bDepartment of Philosophy, University of Helsinki is special issue of Studia Philosophica Estonica centers around Aristotelian metaphysics, construed broadly to cover both scholarly research on Aristo- tle’s metaphysics as well as work by contemporary metaphysicians on Aris- totelian themes. Aristotelian metaphysics is a growing tradition. ere are increasingly more metaphysicians identifying themselves as ‘Aristotelians’, and there are more scholars looking at work in contemporary metaphysics to advance scholarship. Indeed, there have already been a number of vol- umes showcasing this ‘Aristotelian turn’, including Daniel D. Novotný’s and Lukáš Novák’s Aristotelian Perspectives in Metaphysics (óþÕ¦), Edward Feser’s Aristotle on Method and Metaphysics (óþÕì), and Tuomas Tahko’s Contempo- rary Aristotelian Metaphysics (óþÕó). e contribution this special issue makes to the ongoing discussion is twofold. First, the special issue promotes a deeper interaction between schol- ars of Aristotle and contemporary metaphysicians. We hope that the pa- pers encourage people working in the history of philosophy to relate to con- temporary discussions and people working in contemporary metaphysics to engage with Aristotle and Ancient scholarship. Second, the special issue is unied in its focus on two themes in Aristotelian metaphysics, essence and grounding. e papers address questions concerning fundamentality and dependence, ontological independence or priority, the causal priority of forms, the unity of grounding, the reduction of grounding to essence, the unity of essence, the roles of essence, and explanation and denition.
    [Show full text]
  • Hendrik Lorenz/Benjamin Morison Aristotle: Metaphysics Z PHI501, Fall/Spring 2018/2019
    Hendrik Lorenz/Benjamin Morison Aristotle: Metaphysics Z PHI501, Fall/Spring 2018/2019 Aims of the course In this class, we aim to go through systematically the 17 chapters of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, book Z (sometimes called book VII), and chapter 1 of book H of the Metaphysics (the one immediately following Z), since we hold, as do many other scholars, that it is best read as a continuation of book Z. The goal is to understand Aristotle’s famous theory of ‘substance’ as presented in book Z. Substances are the central items in Aristotle’s ontology, and there are a cluster of other notions in the vicinity of ‘substance’ which we will also be trying to clarify: ‘being’, ‘account’, ‘form’, ‘this’, ‘subject’, ‘matter’, ‘essence’ or ‘being what it is’, etc. We also want to assess what kind of treatise Metaphysics Z is: its train of thought is notoriously hard to follow, with apparent digressions, or even insertions, so it might not even have been considered a unified treatise by Aristotle. There is also the question of its relation to the science of metaphysics: is it a preliminary contribution to it, or an actual exposition of (a fragment of) it? Is there even a science of metaphysics (in the sense of ‘science’ defined in the Posterior Analytics) to which it could be related? Brief list of some themes of Metaphysics Z Fall: Z1: Being is said in many ways; the central one is being as substance; so the question ‘what is being’ is the question ‘what is substance?’; Z2: Catalogue of some items which philosophers have thought count as substances;
    [Show full text]
  • The Black Platonism of David Lindsay
    Volume 19 Number 2 Article 3 Spring 3-15-1993 Encounter Darkness: The Black Platonism of David Lindsay Adelheid Kegler Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Kegler, Adelheid (1993) "Encounter Darkness: The Black Platonism of David Lindsay," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 19 : No. 2 , Article 3. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol19/iss2/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm Abstract Characterizes Lindsay as a “belated symbolist” whose characters are “personifications of ontological values.” Uses Neoplatonic “references to transcendence” but his imagery and technique do not suggest a positive view of transcendence. Additional Keywords Lindsay, David—Neoplatonism; Lindsay, David—Philosophy; Lindsay, David. A Voyage to Arcturus; Neoplatonism in David Lindsay This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R.
    [Show full text]
  • Willing the Good: Agathon and Prohairesis
    The Roman Stoics: Seneca and Epictetus 3 Willing the Good: Agathon and Prohairesis 1. The Good Benefits, and so Does Virtue (1) Aetius (Greek doxographer, c. 100 CE): “The Stoics said that wisdom (σοφία) is scientific knowledge (ἐπιστήµη, epistēmē) of the divine and the human, and that philosophy is the practice of expertise in utility (φιλοσοφίαν ἄσκησιν ἐπιτηδείου τέχνης). Virtue first and foremost is utility, and virtues, at their most generic, are triple: the physical one (φυσικόν), the ethical one (ἠθικόν), and the logical one (λογικόν). Hence philosophy too has three parts: physics, ethics and logic. Physics is practised whenever we investigate the world and what is in it, ethics is our engagement with human life, and logic our engagement with discourse, which they also call dialectic.” (LS 26A, SVF 2.35). (2) Seneca’s point in The Happy Life, ‘true happiness is located in virtue’ (16.1). So, there is a connection between happiness (eudaimonia), virtue, and the good (ἀγαθὸν, agathon). Aristotle’s idea: the good is the end (aim) of all action. The highest good (i.e. the ariston) is self-sufficient (autarkes) and final (teleion), and so the (super-)end of action (tōn praktōn ousa telos; NE I.7 1097b20). So, formally, the good is what is not done for the sake of anything else. (Note there is a range of ‘lower’ goods—the ‘indifferents’. Their value is instrumental; some of these goods are ‘worth choosing’; see below). (3) The highest (and only real) good is virtue; the only bad is vice. The good constitutes a genuine benefit for the individual, it has utility; it is intrinsically valuable (as just hinted: an end in itself); the key to a happy life.
    [Show full text]
  • Cult of Isis
    Interpreting Early Hellenistic Religion PAPERS AND MONOGRAPHS OF THE FINNISH INSTITUTE AT ATHENS VOL. III Petra Pakkanen INTERPRETING EARL Y HELLENISTIC RELIGION A Study Based on the Mystery Cult of Demeter and the Cult of Isis HELSINKI 1996 © Petra Pakkanen and Suomen Ateenan-instituutin saatiO (Foundation of the Finnish Institute at Athens) 1996 ISSN 1237-2684 ISBN 951-95295-4-3 Printed in Greece by D. Layias - E. Souvatzidakis S.A., Athens 1996 Cover: Portrait of a priest of Isis (middle of the 2nd to middle of the 1st cent. BC). American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations. Inv. no. S333. Photograph Craig Mauzy. Sale: Bookstore Tiedekirja, Kirkkokatu 14, FIN-00170 Helsinki, Finland Contents Acknowledgements I. Introduction 1. Problems 1 2. Cults Studied 2 3. Geographical Confines 3 4. Sources and an Evaluation of Sources 5 11. Methodology 1. Methodological Approach to the History of Religions 13 2. Discussion of Tenninology 19 3. Method for Studying Religious and Social Change 20 Ill. The Cults of Demeter and Isis in Early Hellenistic Athens - Changes in Religion 1. General Overview of the Religious Situation in Athens During the Early Hellenistic Period: Typology of Religious Cults 23 2. Cult of Demeter: Eleusinian Great Mysteries 29 3. Cult of Isis 47 Table 1 64 IV. Problem of the Mysteries 1. Definition of the Tenn 'Mysteries' 65 2. Aspects of the Mysteries 68 3. Mysteries in Athens During the Early Hellenistic Period and a Comparison to Those of Rome in the Third Century AD 71 4. Emergence of the Mysteries ofIsis in Greece 78 Table 2 83 V.
    [Show full text]
  • Selections from Joe Sachs's Introduction to His Translation of Aristotle's Metaphysics (Sachs's Extensive Footnotes Have Been Omitted from This Selection.)
    Selections from Joe Sachs's Introduction to His Translation of Aristotle's Metaphysics (Sachs's extensive footnotes have been omitted from this selection.) How and Why this Version Differs from Others We cannot give an accurate summary of Aristotle's conclusions about the way things are unless we have some way to translate his characteristic vocabulary, but if our decision is to follow the prevalent habits of the most authoritative interpreters, those conclusions crumble away into nothing. By way of the usual translations, the central argument of the Metaphysics would be: being qua being is being per se in accordance with the categories, which in turn is primarily substance, but primary substance is form, while form is essence and essence is actuality. You might react to such verbiage in various ways. You might think, I am too ignorant and untrained to understand these things, and need an expert to explain them to me. Or you might think, Aristotle wrote gibberish. But if you have some acquaintance with the classical languages, you might begin to be suspicious that something has gone awry: Aristotle wrote Greek, didn't he? And while this argument doesn't sound much like English, it doesn't sound like Greek either, does it? In fact this argument appears to be written mostly in an odd sort of Latin, dressed up to look like English. Why do we need Latin to translate Greek into English at all? At all the most crucial places, the usual translations of Aristotle abandon English and move toward Latin. They do this because earlier translations did the same.
    [Show full text]
  • HEXIS and GRACE: the FORMATION of SOULS at PORT ROYAL and ELSEWHERE INTRODUCTION N the Middle of the Seventeenth Century The
    RICH COCHRANE HEXIS AND GRACE: THE FORMATION OF SOULS AT PORT ROYAL AND ELSEWHERE INTRODUCTION n the middle of the seventeenth century the Cistercian convent known as Port Royal became simultaneously, and connectedly, a centre of pedagogic innovation and religious I controversy. Its “little schools,” which educated (separately) both girls and boys, are now famous largely for the publication of two textbooks, one on logic and another on grammar, which have been seen by some commentators as early documents of the Enlightenment.1 These were associated exclusively with the education of the boys. The girls’ education, however, also produced an important document: the Rule for Children of Jacqueline Pascal,2 who directed the girls’ school at Port Royal des Champs (the old site that lay outside Paris) during the 1650s. This paper gives an interpretation of this text and the educational practice it records and suggests not only that this practice has deep roots in the Christian tradition but also that it continues to exert a powerful, albeit indirect, influence on our thinking about education today. I begin by discussing in some detail the related notions of hexis and divine grace, which in Augustine come together to create a doctrine that had a profound influence on Jansen and his followers. I then proceed to read Pascal’s Rule in the light of this doctrine. I show that the purpose of the regime she supervised was the preparation of the soul to receive grace, making it an early example of a formative pedagogy as opposed to an “informative” one. My aim is to understand the theory embedded in the pedagogic practices Pascal describes rather than to import a theory of practice from elsewhere.3 The extent to which the roots of Pascal’s pedagogy 1 Michel Foucault, The Order of Things (London: Routledge, 1989), 46; 67 et passim; 104 et passim; 195.
    [Show full text]
  • 7 Aristotle on Greatness of Soul
    7 Aristotle on Greatness of Soul Roger Crisp n the recent revival of interest in Aristotelian ethics, relatively little attention has been paid to the virtue of greatness of soul (megalopsuchia). This is partly Ibecause of the focus on the more structurally central concepts of Aristotle’s theory, in particular happiness (eudaimonia) and virtue (aret¯e). But in fact a study of greatness of soul can reveal important insights into the overall shape of Aristotelian ethics, including the place of external goods and luck in the virtuous life, and the significance of “the noble” (to kalon). Further, Aristotle describes the great-souled person in more detail than any other, and calls greatness of soul a “sort of crown of the virtues” (NE IV.3.1124a1–2). Many have found aspects of the portrait of the great-souled person in the Nicomachean Ethics repellent or absurd, but that is no good reason for the student of Aristotle to shy away from it. In this chapter, I shall elucidate Aristotle’s account of greatness of soul, addressing some puzzles internal to that account and bringing out its place in, and implications for, the ethics of Aristotle and of those modern writers influenced by him. Greatness of Soul as a Virtue To understand greatness of soul as an Aristotelian virtue requires first understand- ing Aristotle’s conception of virtue itself. Aristotle distinguishes virtues into two classes – intellectual virtues and virtues of character – corresponding to distinct aspects of the human soul (NE I.13). Greatness of soul is a virtue of character, though, like all such virtues, it requires its possessor to have the intellectual virtue of practical wisdom (phron¯esis; NE VI.13).
    [Show full text]
  • Quantum Reversal of Soul Energy Fran De Aquino
    Quantum Reversal of Soul Energy Fran de Aquino To cite this version: Fran de Aquino. Quantum Reversal of Soul Energy. 2012. hal-01129313 HAL Id: hal-01129313 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01129313 Preprint submitted on 10 Mar 2015 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. Quantum Reversal of Soul Energy Fran De Aquino Maranhao State University, Physics Department, S.Luis/MA, Brazil. Copyright © 2012 by Fran De Aquino. All Rights Reserved. In the last decades, the existence of the Soul has been seriously considered by Quantum Physics. It has been frequently described as a body of unknown energy coupled to human body by means of a mutual interaction. The Quantum Physics shows that energy is quantized, i.e., it has discrete values that are defined as energy levels. Thus, along the life of a person, the energy of its soul is characterized by several quantum levels of energy. Here, we show by means of application of specific electromagnetic radiations on the human body, that it is possible to revert the energy of the soul to previous energy levels. This process can have several therapeutic applications.
    [Show full text]
  • Information to Users
    INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6” x 9” black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. UMI A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zed) Road, Arm Aitor MI 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 V,: "he dreamed of dancing with the blue faced people ..." (Hosteen Klah in Paris 1990: 178; photograph by Edward S. Curtis, courtesy of Beautyway). THE YÉ’II BICHEII DANCING OF NIGHTWAY: AN EXAMINATION OF THE ROLE OF DANCE IN A NAVAJO HEALING CEREMONY DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Sandra Toni Francis, R.N., B.A., M.
    [Show full text]
  • The Univocity of Substance and the Formal Distinction of Attributes: the Role of Duns Scotus in Deleuze's Reading of Spinoza Nathan Widder
    parrhesia 33 · 2020 · 150-176 the univocity of substance and the formal distinction of attributes: the role of duns scotus in deleuze's reading of spinoza nathan widder This paper examines the role played by medieval theologian John Duns Scotus in Gilles Deleuze’s reading of Spinoza’s philosophy of expressive substance; more generally, it elaborates a crucial moment in the development of Deleuze’s philosophy of sense and difference. Deleuze contends that Spinoza adapts and extends Duns Scotus’s two most influential theses, the univocity of being and formal distinction, despite neither appearing explicitly in Spinoza’s writings. “It takes nothing away from Spinoza’s originality,” Deleuze declares, “to place him in a perspective that may already be found in Duns Scotus” (Deleuze, 1992, 49).1 Nevertheless, the historiographic evidence is clearly lacking, leaving Deleuze to admit that “it is hardly likely that” Spinoza had even read Duns Scotus (359n28). Indeed, the only support he musters for his speculation is Spinoza’s obvious in- terests in scholastic metaphysical and logical treatises, the “probable influence” of the Scotist-informed Franciscan priest Juan de Prado on his thought, and the fact that the problems Duns Scotus addresses need not be confined to Christian thought (359–360n28). The paucity of evidence supporting this “use and abuse” of history, however, does not necessarily defeat the thesis. Like other lineages Deleuze proposes, the one he traces from Duns Scotus to Spinoza, and subsequently to Nietzsche, turns not on establishing intentional references by one thinker to his predecessor, but instead on showing how the borrowings and adaptations asserted to create the connec- tion make sense of the way the second philosopher surmounts blockages he faces while responding to issues left unaddressed by the first.
    [Show full text]
  • The Agent Intellect As" Form for Us" and Averroes's. Critique of Al-Farabi
    Tópicos, Revista de Filosofía ISSN: 0188-6649 [email protected] Universidad Panamericana México Taylor, Richard C. The Agent Intellect as "form for us" and Averroes's. Critique of al-Farabi Tópicos, Revista de Filosofía, núm. 29, 2005, pp. 29-51 Universidad Panamericana Distrito Federal, México Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=323027318003 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative The Agent Intellect as "form for us" and Averroes's Critique of al-FarabT Richard C. Taylor Marquette University This article explicates Averroes's understanding of human knowing and abstraction in this three commentaries on Aristotle's De Anima. While Averroes's views on the nature of the human material intellect changes through the three commentaries until he reaches is famous view of the unity of the material intellect as one for all human beings, his view of the agent intellect as 'form for us' is sustained throughout these works. In his Long Commentary on the De Anima he reveals his dependence on al-Farabi for this notion and provides a detailed critique of the Farabian notion that the agent intellect is 'form for us' only as agent cause, not as our true formal cause. Although Averroes argues that the agent intellect must somehow be intrinsic to us as our form since humans 2tieper se rational and undertake acts of knowing by will, his view is shown to rest on an equivocal use of the notion of formal cause.
    [Show full text]