Matter in Z3

In this paper, I will discuss a certain conception of matter that Aristotle introduces in Metaphysics Z3. It is often assumed that Aristotle came to distinguish between matter and form only in his physical writings, and that this lead to a conflict with the doctrine of primary substances in the Categories that he tries to resolve in Z3. I will argue that there is no such conflict. In Z3, Aristotle seems to suggest that matter is what is left over when we strip a thing of all its properties. I take it that he does not want us to strip away these properties by physical means or in our imagination. Rather, we are asked to strip a referring noun phrase of all its predicative parts. We are thus not supposed to be able to refer to something that has no qualities whatsoever, but to construct a phrase that refers to something that has properties without referring to its having them, and without implying which properties it has. The idea that there might be a way of referring to something definite without mentioning any of its qualities is platonic and it still underlies modern predicate logic. In Z3, Aristotle argues against this conception and thus against the basic idea of predicate logic. According to him, matter is at best an inseparable aspect of a primary substance, which substance is best referred to as a compound τóδε τι (“this such”). Matter is what the τóδε refers to as part of this phrase. But it cannot exist in separation from form, and we cannot refer to it by a separated term, without also referring to the substantial form of the substance of which it is an aspect.     

The God Concept: Aristotle and the Philosophical Tradition

Before beginning a paper on metaphysics, it is wise to acknowledge the paper’s own “metaphysical” assumptions. In what follows, we must bear in mind that the history of philosophy is as interpretively diverse as it is long. We will begin with the premise that Metaphysics is indeed a foundational science. We will posit that Aristotle’s corpus is unified; that is, that Aristotle can be read as a “systematic” philosopher. Moreover, we will assume that the history of philosophy is itself a unity. If we posit such, “philosophy” can be read as a comprehensible continuity: a certainly contestable position. We must bear in mind that similitude is decidedly not identity; however, similitude does imply a certain conceptual correlation, one which, when pressed, may yield interesting, if not unexpected, results. Thus, we will travel at lightning speed through what took a snail’s pace to develop, “mapping,” so to speak, the structure of the unmoved mover of Aristotle’s Metaphysics (1941) onto the traditional historical divisions of the history of philosophy. We will begin with Aristotle himself in the Ancient period, move to Averroes (the Ibn-Rushd of this paper) in the Medieval period, focus on Descartes and Spinoza as Modern thinkers and, finally, end in Heidegger and Sartre in Contemporary philosophy. This is philosophy with a capital “P,” which may or may not be the reader’s preferred position, let alone the writer’s. But, for our purposes here, it is, nonetheless, inevitable.     

Meaning and Reference in Aristotle’s Concept of the Linguistic Sign

To Aristotle, spoken words are symbols, not of objects in the world, but of our mental experiences related to these objects. Presently there are two major strands of interpretation of Aristotle’s concept of the linguistic sign. First, there is the structuralist account offered by Coseriu (Geschichte der Sprachphilosophie. Von den Anfängen bis Rousseau, 2003 [1969], pp. 65–108) whose interpretation is reminiscent of the Saussurean sign concept. A second interpretation, offered by Lieb (in: Geckeler (Ed.) Logos Semantikos: Studia Linguistica in Honorem Eugenio Coseriu 1921–1981, 1981) and Weidemann (in: Schmitter (Ed.) Geschichte der Sprachtheorie 2. Sprachtheorien der abendländischen Antike, 1991), says that Aristotle’s concept of the linguistic sign is similar to the one presented in Ogden and Richard’s (The meaning of meaning: A study of the influence of language upon thought and of the science of symbolism, 1970 [1923]) semiotic triangle. This paper starts off with an introductory outline of the so-called phýsei-thései discussion which started during presocratic times and culminated in Plato’s Cratylus. Aristotle’s concept of the linguistic sign is to be regarded as a solution to the stalemate position reached in the Cratylus. Next, a discussion is offered of both Coseriu’s and Lieb’s analysis. We submit that Aristotle’s concept of the linguistic sign shows features of both Saussure’s and Ogden and Richards’s sign concept but that it does not exclusively predict one of the two. We argue that Aristotle’s concept of the linguistic sign is based on three different relations which together evince his teleological as well empiricist point of view: one internal (symbolic) relation and two external relations, i.e. a likeness relation and a relation katà synthéken.     

The Jesuits and the Method of Indivisibles

Alexander’s Infinitesimal is right to argue that the Jesuits had a chilling effect on Italian mathematics, but I question his account of the Jesuit motivations for suppressing indivisibles. Alexander alleges that the Jesuits’ intransigent commitment to Aristotle and Euclid explains their opposition to the method of indivisibles. A different hypothesis, which Alexander doesn’t pursue, is a conflict between the method of indivisibles and the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist. This is a pity, for the conflict with the Eucharist has advantages over the Jesuit commitment to Aristotle and Euclid. The method of indivisibles was a method that developed in the course of the seventeenth century, and those who developed ‘beyond the Alps’ relied upon Aristotelian and Euclidean ideals. Alexander’s failure to recognize the importance of Aristotle and Euclid for the development of the method of indivisibles arises from an unwarranted conflation of indivisibles and infinitesimals (Sect. 2). Once indivisibles and infinitesimals are distinguished, we observe that the development of the method of indivisibles exhibits an unmistakable sympathy for Aristotle and Euclid (Sect. 3). Thus, it makes sense to consider an alternative explanation for the Jesuit abhorrence of indivisibles. And indeed, indivisibles but not infinitesimals conflict with the doctrine of the Eucharist, the central dogma of the Church (Sect. 4).     

A Non-Aristotelian Model: Time as Space and Landscape in Postmodern Theatre

In his Poetics, Aristotle articulated certain ideas on the structure of drama that dominated both dramatic literature and theatre practices for the centuries to come. In this article I show how the thorough analysis of his statements leads us to believe that he endorses causality, narrativity, and temporal linearity as primary factors in the organization of dramatic and stage texts. Tracing various modifications of causality throughout theatre history, I use the work of the two prominent contemporary directors, Eimuntas Nekrosius and Anatoly Vasilyev, to demonstrate how postmodernist theatre has arrived at non-Aristotelian theatrical model based on the unity of a time–space continuum rather than temporal development.     

Advertising Aristotle: A Preliminary Investigation into the Contemporary Relevance of Aristotle’s Art of Rhetoric

In this article, a preliminary investigation will be conducted in order to try to discover whether or not Aristotle’s the Art of Rhetoric can have any relevance as a handbook for the rhetoricians of the twenty-first century and in particular for advertising designers. First, the background against which this question is posed will be set out. Second, the chosen methodology will be explained. Thereafter, some qualitative data will be presented and discussed. Finally, some conclusions will be drawn suggesting that The Art of Rhetoric may be just as relevant and influential today for advertising professionals as it was for the lawyers and politicians of classical times.     

Configuring the Moral Self: Aristotle and Dewey

Focusing on the concept of “the moral self” this essay explores relationships between Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and John Dewey’s moral pragmatism and tries to evaluate the extent to which in his work on ethics Aristotle may be considered a pragmatist. Aristotle foreshadows pragmatism, for example, in preferring virtue-based to rule-based ethics, in contending that the moral status of a person’s actions and the nature of the person’s selfhood are interdependent, and in stressing the key role of habits in character formation. Aristotle, however, may seem far from the status of pragmatist when he privileges the life of contemplation and posits a moral self that is more static than the one proposed by Dewey. This essay contends that if more attention is paid to Aristotle’s treatment of friendship and to his highlighting of the need for reciprocity then the moral self that emerges from Nicomachean Ethics becomes more dialectical and more at one with that proposed by the American pragmatist. Aristotle, then, may be regarded as setting Dewey on the path towards a model of moral self that is not only deeply concerned about the lives of others but that is also dependent on others for its own existence.     

Aristotle’s Difficult Relationship With Modern Economic Theory

This paper reviews Aristotle’s problematic relationship with modern economic theory. It argues that in terms of value and income distribution theory, Aristotle should probably be seen as a precursor to neither classical nor neoclassical economic thought. Indeed, there are strong arguments to be made that Aristotle’s views are completely at odds with all modern economic theory, since, among other things, he was not necessarily concerned with flexible market prices, opposed the use of money to acquire more money, and did not think that the unintended consequences of human activity were generally beneficial. The paper argues however, that this interpretation goes too far. The Benthamite neoclassical theory of choice can be seen as a dumbing down of Aristotle’s theory, applicable to animals, not humans. Adam Smith and Karl Marx were deeply influenced by Aristotle’s work and both started their main economic works with Aristotle: Smith ultimately rejecting, and Marx ultimately developing Aristotle’s views of the use of money to acquire more money. Possibilities for the future development of a new Aristotelian Economics are explored.     

Approximation,Mad Men and the Death of JFK

In this article I take the US television series Mad Men (2007—present) as an exemplary ‘approximation’, a term I adopt to signal the way in which certain texts construct a changeable, fluid ‘truth’ resulting from collisions, exchange and dialectical argument. Approximations are layered, their formal layerings mirroring a layered, multifaceted argument. Mad Men integrates and represents real historical events within a fictional setting, and act that suggests that an event or action can never be finished, fixed and not open to reassessment. Specifically, this article examines ‘The Grown Ups’, Episode 12 of Season 3, which charts the events of 22 November 1963, the day Kennedy was assassinated. Although we might be able to bring to mind the images and conspiracy theories that have been made available since (such Abraham Zapruder’s 8 mm home movie footage of the assassination), these images were not available at the time. Mad Men as a series always strives to represent its historical milieu as authentically as possible, so the characters re-enact 22 November 1963 as authentically as possible by watching only what was on television that day (the news bulletin, Walter Kronkite’s announcement that Kennedy is dead). The contemporary backdrop to these events, including the resonances of ‘9/11’ through Mad Men, inform and collide with the authenticity on the screen.     

From Permanence to Total Availability: A Quantum Conceptual Upgrade

We consider the classical concept of time of permanence and observe that its quantum equivalent is described by a bona fide self-adjoint operator. Its interpretation, by means of the spectral theorem, reveals that we have to abandon not only the idea that quantum entities would be characterizable in terms of spatial trajectories but, more generally, that they would possess the very attribute of spatiality. Consequently, a permanence time shouldn’t be interpreted as a “time” in quantum mechanics, but as a measure of the total availability of a quantum entity in participating to a process of creation of a spatial localization.     

Cultural-Biology: Systemic Consequences of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Our</Emphasis> Evolutionary Natural Drift as Molecular Autopoietic Systems

Our purpose in this essay is to introduce new concepts (dynamic architecture and dynamic ecological organism-niche unity, among other) in a wide and recursive view of the systemic consequences of the following biological facts that I (Maturana in Biology of cognition, 1970, Unity and diversity of man. Le Seuil, Paris, 1978; Maturana and Varela in Autopoiesis and cognition: the realization of the living. D. Riedel Publishing Co, Boston, 1980, El Árbol del Conocimiento: Las Bases Biológicas del Conocer Humano, 1a Edición. Editorial Universitaria, Santiago, 1984; Maturana and Mpodozis in Rev Chil Hist Nat 73:261–310, 2000) and we (Maturana and Dávila in Habitar humano: en seis ensayos de biología-cultural. Juan Carlos Sáez Editorial, Chile, 2008) have presented that can be resumed as: (1) that as living systems we human beings are molecular autopoietic system; (2) that living systems live only as long as they find themselves in a medium that provides them with all the conditions that make the realization of their living possible, that is, in the continuous conservation of their relation of adaptation to the circumstances in which they find themselves; (3) that as a living system exists only in a relation of adaptation with the medium that operates as its ecological niche, its reproduction necessarily occurs as a process of systemic duplication or multiplication of the ecological organism-niche unity that it integrates; (4) that the worlds of doings that we generate as languaging beings in our conversations, explanations, reflections and theories are part of our ecological niche; and (5) that we human beings as living beings that exist in languaging, are biological–cultural beings in which our cultural and our biological manners of existences can be distinguished but cannot be separated. Of the systemic consequences of these biological facts that we consider in this essay, we wish to mention two as the principal: (1) that the diversification of manners of living produced in biological evolution is the result of differential survival in a changing medium through the conservation of adaptation, and not through competitive survival of the best; and (2) that we in our living as languaging human beings (observers) are the epistemological fundament of all that we do and know as such.     

Points of View Beyond Models: Towards a Formal Approach to Points of View as Access to the World

According to Vázquez and Liz (Found Sci 16(4): 383–391, 2011), Points of View (PoV) can be considered in two different ways. On the one hand, they can be explained following the model of propositional attitudes. This model assumes that the internal structure of a PoV is constituted by a subject, a set of contents, and a set of relations between the subject and those contents. On the other hand, we can analyze points of view taking as a model the notions of location and access. If we choose to follow the second approach, instead of the first one, the internal structure of a PoV is not directly addressed, and the emphasized features of PoV are related to the function that PoV are intended to have. That is, PoV are directly identified by their role and they can solely be understood as ways of accessing the world that bring some kind of perspective about it. Having this in mind, we would like to propose a notation that explains how to understand such access as a sort of models (that can allow the creation of concepts), independently of whether the precise PoV under consideration is impersonal or non-impersonal, its kind of content, and its subjective or objective character. First, we will present an account of some previous approaches to the study of points of view. Then, we will analyze what kind of structure the world is assumed to posses and how the access to it is possible. Third, we will develop a notation that explains PoV as qualitative dimensions by means of which it is possible to valuate objects and states of the world.     

Canonical Analysis: Ranks,Ratios and Fits

Measurements of p variables for n samples are collected into a n×p matrix X, where the samples belong to one of k groups. The group means are separated by Mahalanobis distances. CVA optimally represents the group means of X in an r-dimensional space. This can be done by maximizing a ratio criterion (basically one- dimensional) or, more flexibly, by minimizing a rank-constrained least-squares fitting criterion (which is not confined to being one-dimensional but depends on defining an appropriate Mahalanobis metric). In modern n < p problems, where W is not of full rank, the ratio criterion is shown not to be coherent but the fit criterion, with an attention to associated metrics, readily generalizes. In this context we give a unified generalization of CVA, introducing two metrics, one in the range space of W and the other in the null space of W, that have links with Mahalanobis distance. This generalization is computationally efficient, since it requires only the spectral decomposition of a n×n matrix.     

The Death and the Resurrection of (Psy)critique: The Case of Neuroeducation

A rapidly emerging hegemonic neuro-culture and a booming neural subjectivity signal the entry point for an inquiry into the status of the signifier neuro as a universal passe-partout. The wager of this paper is that the various (mis)appropriations of the neurosciences in the media and in academia itself point to something essential, if not structural, in connection with both the discipline of the neurosciences and the current socio-cultural and ideological climate. Starting from the case of neuroeducation (the application of neuroscience within education), the genealogy of the neurological turn is linked to the history of psychology and its inextricable bond with processes of psychologisation. If the neurological turn risks not merely neglecting the dimension of critique, but also obviating its possibility, then revivifying a psy-critique (understanding the academified modern subject as grounded in the scientific point of view from nowhere) might be necessary in order to understand today’s neural subjectivity and its place within current biopolitics.     

Leibniz’s Theory of Space

In this paper I offer a fresh interpretation of Leibniz’s theory of space, in which I explain the connection of his relational theory to both his mathematical theory of analysis situs and his theory of substance. I argue that the elements of his mature theory are not bare bodies (as on a standard relationalist view) nor bare points (as on an absolutist view), but situations. Regarded as an accident of an individual body, a situation is the complex of its angles and distances to other co-existing bodies, founded in the representation or state of the substance or substances contained in the body. The complex of all such mutually compatible situations of co-existing bodies constitutes an order of situations, or instantaneous space. Because these relations of situation change from one instant to another, space is an accidental whole that is continuously changing and becoming something different, and therefore a phenomenon. As Leibniz explains to Clarke, it can be represented mathematically by supposing some set of existents hypothetically (and counterfactually) to remain in a fixed mutual relation of situation, and gauging all subsequent situations in terms of transformations with respect to this initial set. Space conceived in terms of such allowable transformations is the subject of Analysis Situs. Finally, insofar as space is conceived in abstraction from any bodies that might individuate the situations, it encompasses all possible relations of situation. This abstract space, the order of all possible situations, is an abstract entity, and therefore ideal.