Aristotle's Topics and informal reasoning

2013

Abstract: One of the goals in Aristotle’s investigations in the Metaphysics is to determine what the first principles are and what relation they have to the study of metaphysics, i.e., the science of being. For Aristotle, the first principles are the starting points of demonstration, and they are the foundation upon which all subsequent investigations into the science of being take place. In order to be able to conduct investigations into metaphysics it is necessary to determine foremost what those first principles are. This problem is first presented in Book Beta of the Metaphysics. Book Beta deals with fifteen aporia, or puzzles, that are associated with metaphysics, and for Aristotle, it is necessary to confront these puzzles in order to make any progress into investigations in metaphysics. The second aporia is concerned with whether or not it is the task of one single science, i.e. metaphysics, to investigate both the ultimate principles of being and the basic principles of logi...

Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 1986

MICHAEL J. LOUX hroughout his philosophical career, Aristotle insisted on the ontological priority T of familiar concrete objects, and in his most mature writings, he encapsulated this category preference for the things he called substances in the thesis that 'being' has pros hen equivocity or focal meaning.' This thesis has frequently been understood as a claim about existential statements, the claim ( I ) that 'exists' has a different meaning or sense when predicated of logical subjects from different Aristotelian categories and (2) that, among these distinct senses, that appropriate to substances is primary or basic. The proponent of this interpretation would spell out the doctrine by telling us that 'exists' has a different meaning in each of the following:

Journal of the History of Philosophy, 1981

Journal of Ancient Philosophy, 2013

In both Metaphysics Γ 4 and 5 Aristotle argues that Protagoras is committed to the view that all contradictions are true. Yet Aristotle's arguments are not transparent, and later, in Γ 6, he provides Protagoras with a way to escape contradictions. In this paper I try to understand Aristotle's arguments. After examining a number of possible solutions, I conclude that the best way of explaining them is to (a) recognize that Aristotle is discussing a number of Protagorean opponents, and (b) import another of Protagoras' views, namely the claim that there are always two logoi opposed to one another.

One of the most difficult concepts to grasp in Aristotle's philosophy is the concept of topos. There have been many attempts to define it. In this paper I will try to appeal to the etymology of the term, to summarize the attempts to define it, to present its structure and also give, at the end, a possible interpretation of the Aristotelian topos.

2018

The article argues that Aristotle’s Square of Opposition is introduced within a context in which there are other squares of opposition. My claim is that all of them are interesting and related to the traditional Square of Opposition. The paper focuses on explaining this textual situation and its philosophical meaning. Apart from the traditional Square of Opposition, there are three squares of opposition that are interesting to follow: the square of opposition with privative terms (19b19-24), the one with indefinite-term oppositions (20a20-23), and the modal square (22a24-31), which are all contained in Aristotle’s De Interpretatione 10 and 13. The paper explains that all these squares follow a common plan, which is to demonstrate that every affirmation has its own negation, whatever is the proposition either categorical or conditional, or modal or non-modal, which is a reference to the universal importance of contradiction in logic.

In M. Rossetto, M. Tsianikas, G. Couvalis and M. Palaktsoglou (Eds.) "Greek Research in Australia: Proceedings of the Eighth Biennial International Conference of Greek Studies, Flinders University June 2009". Flinders University Department of Languages - Modern Greek: Adelaide, 36-43, 2011

Aristotle’s defence of the principle of non-contradiction has been recently criticized by Graham Priest. I argue that Priest’s arguments do not work against the primary version of aristotle’s principle; Priest relies on assumptions aristotle does not, and need not, accept. However, I argue that Aristotle’s denial of the existence of points can be used to criticise his defence of non-contradiction.

Substance and Attribute, 2007