Sign up for Closereads at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy to get previous and future installments of this podcast. Why are there two audio players? Because PEL supporters get this ad-free! From Disputed Questions in De Anima (1269) as presented in Thomas Aquinas: Selected Philosophical Writings (Oxford 1993), "Passage 18: Soul in Human Beings." The question is how Continue Reading …
Closereads: Aristotle on Final Causes
Sign up for Closereads at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy to get previous and future installments of this podcast. On Aristotle's Physics, book 2, ch. 8 on "final causation," i.e. purposiveness as a natural explanation. Modern science doesn't much like this kind of explanation, but Aristotle found it essential, and here's his argument for it. Read along with us. You Continue Reading …
Ep. 338: Aristotle on Potential vs. Actual and the Unmoved Mover (Part Two)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. To conclude our discussion of Aristotle's Metaphysics, we finish discussing potency by talking about our potential to learn, i.e. the Meno problem: How can we learn something (have the potential to know it) unless we already in some sense know it? Aristotle dismisses this as "sophistical": we have Continue Reading …
Ep. 338: Aristotle on Potential vs. Actual and the Unmoved Mover (Part One)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. For our fourth and final discussion of Aristotle's Metaphysics, Mark, Wes, and Dylan read portions of books 9 (Theta) and 12 (Lambda). The first of these covered Aristotle's notion of energeia, sometimes translated as actuality, but by our translator Joe Sachs as "being-at-work." An Continue Reading …
Ep. 338: Aristotle on Potential vs. Actual and the Unmoved Mover (Part Two for Supporters)
To conclude our discussion of Aristotle's Metaphysics, we finish discussing potency by talking about our potential to learn, i.e. the Meno problem: How can we learn something (have the potential to know it) unless we already in some sense know it? Aristotle dismisses this as "sophistical": we have the potential to kick off the learning process and then actually learn through Continue Reading …
Ep. 338: Aristotle on Potential vs. Actual and the Unmoved Mover (Part One for Supporters)
For our fourth and final discussion of Aristotle's Metaphysics, Mark, Wes, and Dylan read portions of books 9 (Theta) and 12 (Lambda). The first of these covered Aristotle's notion of energeia, sometimes translated as actuality, but by our translator Joe Sachs as "being-at-work." An example of this is eudaimonia, the word we've discussed as the goal of ancient Greek ethics: Continue Reading …
Ep. 337: Aristotle on Primary Being (Part Two)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. Continuing from part one on Aristotle's Metaphysics, Book 7 (Zeta), on essences and what sorts of things have them. Contrasting with Plato, Aristotle believes that some changing, visible things have forms. How do they get them? Well, they're received from some previous thing that has a Continue Reading …
Ep. 337: Aristotle on Primary Being (Part One)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. Continuing for our third session on Aristotle's Metaphysics, now covering Book 7 (Zeta). Start your journey with ep. 335. We're back to the full four hosts for this discussion. In our last episode, we explained Aristotle's position about how to talk about being (what it is for something to Continue Reading …
Ep. 337: Aristotle on Primary Being (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on Aristotle's Metaphysics, Book 7 (Zeta), on essences and what sorts of things have them. Contrasting with Plato, Aristotle believes that some changing, visible things have forms. How do they get them? Well, they're received from some previous thing that has a comparable form, e.g. a child from its parents, or perhaps a form could come from a Continue Reading …
Ep. 337: Aristotle on Primary Being (Part One for Supporters)
Continuing for our third session on Aristotle's Metaphysics, now covering Book 7 (Zeta). Start your journey with ep. 335. We're back to the full four hosts for this discussion. In our last episode, we explained Aristotle's position about how to talk about being (what it is for something to exist), which, since it doesn't actually contrast with anything (not even nothingness, Continue Reading …
Ep. 336: Aristotle on Being and Non-Contradiction (Part Two)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. Continuing from part one on Book 4 (Gamma) of the Metaphysics. We discuss the relation between the logical principle that no statement or belief can legitimately contradict itself and the metaphysical principle that something can't both be and not be at the same time and in the same Continue Reading …
Ep. 336: Aristotle on Being and Non-Contradiction (Part One)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. On Aristotle's Metaphysics, book 4 (aka Gamma) (ca. 340 BCE), featuring Mark, Wes, and Dylan. Our treatment of this book starts with the previous episode. What does studying "being" entail? When we study a particular kind of thing, e.g. an animal species, we say things about it that Continue Reading …
Ep. 336: Aristotle on Being and Non-Contradiction (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on Book 4 (Gamma) of the Metaphysics. We discuss the relation between the logical principle that no statement or belief can legitimately contradict itself and the metaphysical principle that something can't both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect. Aristotle argues against the relativists of his day, such as Protagoras whose famous Continue Reading …
Ep. 336: Aristotle on Being and Non-Contradiction (Part One for Supporters)
On Aristotle's Metaphysics, book 4 (aka Gamma) (ca. 340 BCE), featuring Mark, Wes, and Dylan. Our treatment of this book starts with the previous episode. What does studying "being" entail? When we study a particular kind of thing, e.g. an animal species, we say things about it that distinguish it from other animals, and animals from other types of things. But since Continue Reading …
Closereads: Aristotle Against Platonic Forms (Audio Part One), aka PEL Ep. 335 (Part Three for Supporters)
Sign up for Closereads at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy to get future parts on this reading, as well as our previous and future installments of this new podcast. Aristotle offers a critique of Plato's theory of forms at a few points in his Metaphysics, and in this and the following part of this series, we'll be tackling this by reading part of book 1, ch. 9. Read Continue Reading …
Ep. 335: Aristotle on Fundamental Explanations (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing on Aristotle's Metaphysics, book 1. We get seriously into Aristotle's four types of causation and how previous philosophers in leaving out one or most of these made a mistake. This includes a critique of Platonic forms, which as eternal, unchanging patterns can't actually explain why change occurs in the world. Parmenides famously only thought there was one Continue Reading …
Ep. 335: Aristotle on Fundamental Explanations (Part One for Supporters)
On Aristotle's Metaphysics, book 1 (aka Alpha) (ca. 340 BCE). What constitutes a basic explanation of the universe? Featuring Mark, Wes, Dylan, and Seth. Aristotle famously give us four types of causation; the Greek word is "aitia," which is perhaps better translated as "explanation," and in this book, Aristotle (or whoever put this book together based on Aristotle's Continue Reading …
Ep. 279: Aristotle’s “Categories” of Being (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on the Categories, we finish up our discussion of substance by talking about artifacts: Only "genuine unities" are substances, and hammers and cups, for Aristotle, don't count as such unities. Should being a cup be considered instead a property like being white? Can properties be complex? We're actually not sure about natural objects like rivers, Continue Reading …
Ep. 247: Aristotle on Rhetoric and Emotions (Part Two)
Continuing on the Rhetoric (ca. 335 BCE) book 1, ch. 1–6 and book 2, ch. 1–5, 18–24. We finish up with enthymemes (rhetorical arguments), maxims, and signs. We then move to emotions, where we chiefly talk about anger: Is it always a matter of status injury, or is frustration equally (or more) foundational? Begin with part one, or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition Continue Reading …
Ep. 247: Aristotle on Rhetoric and Emotions (Part One)
On the Rhetoric (ca. 335 BCE) book 1, ch. 1–6 and book 2, ch. 1–5, 18–24. What role does persuasion play in philosophy? In Plato's Gorgias, Socrates condemns the sophists who taught rhetoric for merely endowing their students with social power over others, power that would make them neither happy nor virtuous. Philosophy should be about getting at the truth. Aristotle Continue Reading …