The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of the Liberal Arts THE INCLUDED MIDDLE: LOGOS IN ARISTOTLE’S PHILOSOPHY A Thesis in Philosophy by Omer Orhan Aygun Copyright 2007 Omer Orhan Aygun Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2007 The thesis of Omer Orhan Aygun was reviewed and approved* by the following: John Russon Professor of Philosophy Thesis Co-Adviser Co-Chair of Committee Special Member Daniel W. Conway Professor of Philosophy Thesis Co-Adviser Co-Chair of Committee Veronique Fotí Professor of Philosophy Christopher E. Long Associate Professor of Philosophy Mark Munn Professor of History Shannon Sullivan Associate Professor of Philosophy Head of the Department of Philosophy * Signatures are on file in the Graduate School. ii ABSTRACT Our dissertation is a research of the various meanings of logos in Aristotle’s philosophy and the conceptual relation between them. Our method is dialectic, bringing a survey of Aristotle’s philosophy together the argumentation of our thesis. We started from the very beginning of the Aristotelian corpus, we devoted our first two chapters to Aristotle’s logic, chapters III and IV to his philosophy of nature, and our last chapters V and VI to his ethical political philosophy. Thus, we have worked on four fundamental meanings of logos respectively: “standard”, “proportion”, “reason” and “discourse”. Our thesis is the following. In its four fundamental meanings in Aristotle’s philosophy, logos each time refers back to a focal meaning: a relation between terms that preserves them together in their difference instead of collapsing one term to the other or holding them in indifference. Thus “standard”, “proportion”, “reason” and “discourse” as well as their synonyms and derivatives all refer back to a relation between formerly contrary or mutually exclusive terms. Thus the term logos in Aristotle provides the inclusive counterpart to what could appear as a simply exclusive principle of non-contradiction or of the excluded middle. Most significantly, the sense of logos which defines human beings refers to their ability to understand and express both experiences made first hand and experiences they have not had and may or will never have first hand. It is this sense of logos that sheds light on the specifically human character of education, science, historiography, politics, psychology, sophistry and philosophy. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements.....................................................................................................vii INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................1 A. THE QUESTION.........................................................................................3 B. ARISTOTLE’S METHOD..........................................................................7 1. Dialectic...........................................................................................7 2. Aristotle on method and diaclectic................................................12 3. Dialectic as a way toward nature...................................................14 4. The modality of dialectic...............................................................18 5. Dialectic as maieutics....................................................................21 C. METHOD OF THE DISSERTATION......................................................23 1. Two impasses: Inductive method...................................................23 2. Two impasses: Deductive method.................................................28 3. Method of the dissertation.............................................................32 4. Outline of the dissertation..............................................................36 5. Further perspectives.......................................................................41 Chapter 1. BEING: LOGOS IN THE CATEGORIES..................................................48 A. HOMONYMY...........................................................................................49 1. Aspect............................................................................................50 2. A kind of somnolence....................................................................54 3. An exclusive version of the principle of non-contradiction...........55 4. “Underlying thing”.........................................................................56 5. An example....................................................................................57 B. SYNONYMY............................................................................................61 1. Logos of being................................................................................62 2. A kind of waking...........................................................................65 3. An inclusive version of the principle of non-contradiction...........67 4. Another sense of “underlying thing” ............................................71 5. Return to the example....................................................................73 C. RECAPITULATION AND REORIENTATION......................................78 Chapter 2. POTENCY: LOGOS IN ON INTERPRETATION.....................................86 A. THE INHERENCE OF LOGOS................................................................87 1. The problem...................................................................................88 2. Revision of the project...................................................................91 3. Return to Aristotle’s example........................................................94 4. Return to logos...............................................................................98 5. Return of logos.............................................................................100 B. POTENCY...............................................................................................103 1. A trivial concept of potency.........................................................104 2. A temporal concept of potency....................................................105 3. Motion..........................................................................................109 4. Action...........................................................................................112 iv 5. Potency and logos........................................................................114 C. RECAPITULATION AND REORIENTATION....................................118 Chapter 3. NATURAL MOTION: LOGOS IN THE PHYSICS................................121 A. THE NATURAL......................................................................................122 1. The definition of nature...............................................................124 2. Undoing conceptions of early modern physics............................126 3. Everyday “physics” .....................................................................133 4. Nature as being-at-work...............................................................136 5. Logos and nature..........................................................................139 B. THE ORGANIC.......................................................................................142 1. The soul as eidos..........................................................................144 2. The soul as entelekheia................................................................147 3. The organic..................................................................................151 4. Nutrition.......................................................................................153 5. Reproduction................................................................................158 C. RECAPITULATION AND REORIENTATION....................................162 Chapter 4. ANIMAL MOTION: LOGOS IN ON THE SOUL...................................169 A. SENSATION...........................................................................................171 1. Affection......................................................................................172 2. The fire example..........................................................................176 3. Alteration.....................................................................................177 4. The wax example.........................................................................180 5. The lyre example..........................................................................183 B. LOCOMOTION.......................................................................................189 1. “Transperception” .......................................................................189 2. Locomotion..................................................................................192 3. The “practical syllogism” ...........................................................195 4. A middle term..............................................................................198 5. Beyond locomotion......................................................................201 C. RECAPITULATION AND REORIENTATION....................................205 Chapter 5. HUMAN ACTION: LOGOS IN THE NICOMACHEAN ETHICS..........211 A. ETHOS.....................................................................................................213 1. An unpractical syllogism.............................................................215 2. A tripartite soul............................................................................217