Philosophy & Social Criticism, Ahead of Print. If critical theory is to challenge capitalism’s corrosive commodification of labor and nature, then it should renew a sense of labor as a real bodily power with an internal telos, along the lines of an Aristotelian normativity of praxis. Recent thought however either rejects normativity altogether, or pits normative praxis against labor uncritically reduced to its commodification. Habermas’s work provides an exemplary case of the latter. While he rightly found the ‘production paradigm’ of (...) normativity problematic, his acceptance of the reified form of labor as total led to a severe divorce of praxis from the emerging contents of the body and nature. Although Aristotle also separated praxis from poiesis, his thought nevertheless harbors views of their dialectical integration without falling into the problematic production paradigm. Here the normativity of praxis emerges from poiesis understood non-reductively as the form of the self-organizing body already transforming nature and itself toward higher interactions. (shrink)

Modern philosophy of mathematics has been dominated by Platonism and nominalism, to the neglect of the Aristotelian realist option. Aristotelianism holds that mathematics studies certain real properties of the world – mathematics is neither about a disembodied world of “abstract objects”, as Platonism holds, nor it is merely a language of science, as nominalism holds. Aristotle’s theory that mathematics is the “science of quantity” is a good account of at least elementary mathematics: the ratio of two heights, for example, (...) is a perceivable and measurable real relation between properties of physical things, a relation that can be shared by the ratio of two weights or two time intervals. Ratios are an example of continuous quantity; discrete quantities, such as whole numbers, are also realised as relations between a heap and a unit-making universal. For example, the relation between foliage and being-a-leaf is the number of leaves on a tree,a relation that may equal the relation between a heap of shoes and being-a-shoe. Modern higher mathematics, however, deals with some real properties that are not naturally seen as quantity, so that the “science of quantity” theory of mathematics needs supplementation. Symmetry, topology and similar structural properties are studied by mathematics, but are about pattern, structure or arrangement rather than quantity. (shrink)

Aristotelian substance theory tells us that substances have structures (read: forms) as proper parts. This claim has recently been defended by Kathrin Koslicki who dubbed it the ‘Neo-Aristotelian Thesis.’ Strangely, Aristotelianism has not yet been universally embraced by philosophers – partly because some of its claims, such as the Neo-Aristotelian Thesis – are viewed by some as counterintuitive at best. In this paper, I argue for Aristotelianism by showing its philosophical usefulness: specifically, I put it to use in (...) saving the metaphysical doctrine of endurantism and some central mereological doctrines (such as Transitivity) from recent attacks. This utility gives us reason to endorse Aristotelianism. Along the way, I defend Koslicki's argument for the Neo-Aristotelian Thesis from a recent criticism, thus helping provide still more reason to endorse Aristotelianism: namely, Koslicki's vindicated argument. (shrink)

This paper examines whether Giordano Bruno’s philosophy should be considered pantheist or immanentist—two philosophies that scholars regard as partly equivalent. However, this paper distinguishes them and argues that Bruno either identified the whole of nature with God or recognized a primary principle that is immanent, yet distinguishable, from matter. In terms of Bruno’s interpretation of the Aristotelian notions of form and matter, the difference between an immanentist view and a pantheist one lies in the role that form (or act) assumes (...) with regard to matter (or potency). This paper maintains that Bruno interpreted and adapted Aristotle’s philosophy to find his own immanentist metaphysics, which is built on the traditional Aristotelian system. This argument was based on the reconstruction of how he used Aristotelian thought as an instrument to subvert Aristotelianism. In particular, Bruno attested that intellect exists within nature, but it is not co-extensive with the whole nature. Finally, the paper highlights how Bruno applied Aristotle’s language, method, and themes to criticize the fundamentals of Aristotelian philosophy and the related traditions. (shrink)

The view that dominated the last century claims that ethical thought requires thinking of some things – e.g. pleasure, knowledge, virtue – as good “full stop,” or good simpliciter . Traditional Consequentialists, for instance, argue that moral evaluations of acts, motives, etc . are grounded in facts about the simple goodness of that which those things bring about. Similarly, some rational intuitionists think that claims about what one has reason to do are grounded in facts about what is good simpliciter (...) . Such a view gives rise to a set of semantic, metaphysical, and epistemological puzzles about the nature of good simpliciter . I argue that an Aristotelian approach to ethics reveals that ethical thought does not requires good simpliciter , that Aristotelian positions avoid charges of metaphysical and epistemological queerness, and that it gives a straightforward semantic analysis of key moral terms, e.g. morally good/bad and morally right/wrong. I then distinguish between two varieties of Aristotelianism. (shrink)

William Gilbert’s 1600 book, De magnete, greatly influenced early modern natural philosophy. The book describes an impressive array of physical experiments, but it also advances a metaphysical view at odds with the soon to emerge mechanical philosophy. That view was animism. I distinguish two kinds of animism – Aristotelian and Platonic – and argue that Gilbert was an Aristotelian animist. Taking Robert Boyle as an example, I then show that early modern arguments against animism were often effective only against Platonic (...) animism. In fact, unacknowledged traces of Aristotelian animism can be found in Boyle’s mechanical account of nature. This was Gilbert’s legacy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Aristotelianism of Locke's PoliticsJ. S. MaloyThose, then, who think that the positions of statesman, king, household manager, and master of slaves are the same are not correct. For they hold that each of these differs not innly in whether the subjects ruled are few or many... the assumption being that there is no difference between a large household and a small city-state.... But these claims are not (...) true.Aristotle, Politics, 1252a1The Power of a Magistrate over a Subject may be distinguished from that of a Father over his Children, a Master over his Servant, a Husband over his Wife, and a Lord over his Slave. All which distinct Powers happening sometimes together in the same Man, if he be considered under these different Relations, it may help us to distinguish these Powers one from another, and show the difference betwixt a Ruler of a Common-wealth, a Father of a Family, and a Captain of a Galley.Locke, Two Treatises of Government, 2.22 [End Page 235]When the political theory of John Locke first appeared in print in 1689, the imposing authority of Aristotle stood ready to defeat it. So believed many of Locke's critics, at any rate. After his death in 1704, when it was confirmed that the internationally renowned author of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding had also written the anonymously published Two Treatises of Government, Locke was widely taken to represent a distinctive type of political theory based on individual rights and the social contract. Learned opposition to this sort of voluntaristic account of politics has often rested on Aristotle, "the Philosopher," the ancient authority on the human instinct for sociability and the hierarchal communities arising therefrom. Within the modern academy "liberals," "communitarians," and "republicans" have again made a habit of pronouncing the names of Locke and Aristotle in tones of antagonism. In broad outline the reasons have not changed in two or three centuries ago: the first stands for natural-rights individualism and the second for an organic conception of community.3What are we to make of this conventional opposition in light of the awkward fact that the second of Locke's Two Treatises, "Of Civil Government," takes the reclamation of the Aristotelian conception of political power as its principal purpose? Locke announced in the opening chapter of that essay that his chief target, Robert Filmer, had misunderstood the nature of distinctively political relationships, mainly by ignoring the differences between authority in political society and authority within the family (L 2.1–2). Locke alleged that this basic conceptual mistake of the Filmerian theory of "absolute" and "arbitrary" government was the source of its disastrous practical ramifications, which he had summed up in the first Treatise as "Chains for all Mankind" (L 1.1). Filmer, in turn, had taken Plato's side in the debate about political and familial rule which Aristotle had joined in the opening lines of his Politics (A 1252a). Though a perceptive reader long ago noticed the Aristotelianism of Locke's response to Filmer—Locke and Algernon Sidney were the "two famous men" to whom Rousseau alluded as having defended Aristotle against Filmer's Platonic notions of power—no modern scholar has attempted a full explanation of the significance of Locke's intervention in this debate.4 [End Page 236]The analysis below will show that Aristotle was the classic source for both the principal theoretic argument of Locke's second Treatise and the method employed to pursue it, i.e. using analogies of power for conceptual comparison and distinction. But my argument for the Aristotelianism of Locke's politics will rest on contextual as well as textual grounds. Not only was Locke pursuing an evident variation on the central theme of bk. 1 of Aristotle's Politics; he was far from alone in doing so. This sort of project was by the 1680s typical of radical constitutionalist writing in Europe, including not only English Whigs like Sidney and James Tyrrell but also a long line of writers on both sides of the English Channel, stretching back at least a century, who deployed a particular interpretation of Aristotle in the service... (shrink)

This book offers a re-evaluation of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, the prominent Italian Renaissance philosopher and prince of Concord. It argues that Pico is part of a history of attempted concordance between philosophy and theology, reason and faith. His contribution is a syncretist theological philosophy based on Christianity, Platonism, Aristotelianism and Jewish Kabbalism. After an introduction, Chapter 2 discusses Pico’s career, his power-relations and his work, Chapters 3 and 4 place his three pillars of Platonism, Aristotelianism and Kabbalism (...) in their historical context, examines shared histories, and introduces the scholars around Pico who contributed so much in each of these traditions (introducing, for example, Christian Kabbalism), including exploring Pico's complex relationship with Marsilio Ficino. Chapter 5 examines the problems of concordance within Pico’s cosmology and metaphysics, including the question of God and the role of the Intellect. Chapter 6 describes Pico’s ‘exceptionalist’ version of the mystical ascent as an individualized ascetic experience. Pico eschews the contemporary desire to use a renewed christian thinking or christian-classical metaphysics to change the world (towards a Golden Age or a 'second coming') to present a personal path to God, with no return to the world. (shrink)

In this paper I would like to establish the priority of Aristotle in the thought of George Frederick Holmes (1820-1897), the South's leading philosopher of the nineteenth century. Accompanying this aim is the possibility of an improved understanding of the historical "Mind of the South" and its particular orientation to the ongoing rise of modern civilization. Holmes copiously presented a firmly articulated "metaphysics" in a myriad of articles over a period stretching from the early 1840's until the end of the (...) 1870's. Holmes spent much of his philosophical energy struggling with such then influential moderns as Comte, Spencer and Darwin. But for all that the basis of his thought remained Aristotelian in nature. If it be allowed that Aristotle can make a "comeback" under today's conditions perhaps George Frederick Holmes is also entitled to be viewed once again as a "live option" given the fundamentally Aristotelian nature of his thought. (shrink)

In general historical treatments, one often encounters the idea that Kepler’s and Newton’s discovery of elliptical planetary orbits marked a decisive break with tradition and definitively undermined any possibility of an Aristotelian approach to physics and astronomy. Although Aristotle had no understanding of gravity, I want to demonstrate that elliptical orbits were a refinement of earlier models and that one can produce an Aristotelian account of elliptical orbits once one corrects his crucial mistake about gravity. One interesting side-effect of this (...) straightforwardly Aristotelian approach is that it eliminates the empty, second focal point around which any elliptical system revolves. I should emphasize that the present paper is not intended to contradict, oppose, or replace any aspect of contemporary mathematical physics or astronomy. The point is not to propose a new scientific theory—we all know that planetary orbits are elliptical—but to demonstrate that metaphysical Aristotelianism is more versatile than is generally supposed. (shrink)

In recent years virtue theory, which is derived from Aristotle’s moral philosophy, has become increasingly popular as an alternative both to deontological theories such as Kant’s and to consequentialism such as Mill’s utilitarianism. Here Rosalind Hursthouse (1943– ) sketches the main features of such virtue theory or neo-Aristotelianism, bringing out its distinctive approach. Neo-Aristotelians are interested not just in particular actions, but in the flourishing of individuals over a lifetime; they are concerned with character traits rather than duties. The (...) essential question for a neo-Aristotelian is not ‘Which actions are right or wrong?’ but rather ‘How am I to live well?’ (From Rosalind Hursthouse, Beginning Lives, 1987). (shrink)

In October 2018, Slavoj Žižek published a two-part contribution titled ‘Should the Left’s answer to rightist populism be really a ‘‘me too’’?’. In this text, Žižek reproduced his diachronic skepticism on populism as a fruitful strategy for the Left. In a critical vein, we believe that Žižek’s latest interventions join - unconsciously or not - an avalanche of anti-populist discourses that usually emanate from elitist politicians and journalists, and reproduce a moralist, alarmist stance against populism. As a consequence, anti-populist elitism (...) blurs the concept of populism even more thereby hampering our possibilities to capture the changing politico-historic reality in the age of collapsing neoliberalism. (shrink)

Alasdair MacIntyre is an Aristotelian critic of communitarianism, which he understands to be committed to the politics of the capitalist and bureaucratic nation-state. The politics he proposes instead is based in the resistance to managerial institutions of what he calls ‘practices’, because these are schools of virtue. This shares little with the communitarianism of a Taylor or the Aristotelianism of a Gadamer. Although practices require formal institutions. MacIntyre opposes such conservative politics. Conventional accounts of a ‘liberal-communitarian debate’ in political (...) philosophy face the dilemma that Alasdair MacIntyre, often identified as a paradigmatic communitarian, has consistently and emphatically repudiated this characterization. Although neo-Aristotelianism is sometimes seen as a philosophical warrant for communitarian politics, MacIntyre’s Aristotelianism is opposed to communitarianism. This paper explores the rationale of that opposition. (shrink)

Central to the western theistic understanding of divine providence is the conviction that God is the sovereign Lord of nature. He created the physical universe and continually conserves it in existence. What's more, He is always and everywhere active in it by His power. The operations of nature, be they minute or catastrophic, commonplace or unprecedented, are the work of His hands, and without His constant causal influence none of them would or could occur.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 62.2 (2001) 211-232 [Access article in PDF] Aristotelianism and the Soul in the Arabic Plotinus Peter Adamson It is common for historians of medieval thought to note that the influence of Aristotle on Islamic philosophy was tinged with Neoplatonism, thanks to a text known as the "Theology of Aristotle." It is now known that the "Theology" is in fact not a work (...) of Aristotle's but rather a paraphrase of parts of Plotinus's Enneads. Certainly, the misattribution of this work to Aristotle facilitated the spread of Neoplatonism as an aspect of Islamic peripateticism, as represented by such authors as al-Kindi, al-Farabi, and Ibn Sina (Avicenna). Some efforts have been made to assess its influence on particular philosophers, most notably Ibn Sina whose notes on the "Theology" have come down to us and who may have doubted its authenticity. 1 Until recently the attention paid to the "Theology" itself has tended more towards philological than philosophical analysis, focusing in particular on possible sources of the text. 2 Yet the differences between the original writings of Plotinus and its Arabic paraphrase are of considerable philosophic interest. In recent years research into the "Theology" has begun to pay more attention to the philosophical issues raised by the paraphrase. 3 Here I hope to further this trend by suggesting that, although the author [End Page 211] of this paraphrase was not Aristotle, his own thought was suffused with Aristotelianism.First, we should note that the so-called "Theology of Aristotle" is itself only a part of an original, larger paraphrase of the Enneads. It is now usually thought that this paraphrase was authored by a member of al-Kindi's circle in ninth- century Baghdad. 4 The original Arabic Plotinus has been preserved in three separate texts. The first is the "Theology" (hereafter Th.A) which is itself subdivided into a prologue, a series of "headings" (ru'us), and ten chapters, each called a mimar, meaning "chapter" in Syriac. 5 This is by far the longest of the three texts. We also have the so-called Letter on Divine Science, formerly attributed to al-Farabibut shown by Kraus to belong to the Arabic Plotinus materials. 6 Finally, there are the Sayings of the Greek Sage, a set of fragments collected from various sources by Rosenthal and Lewis which also paraphrases Plotinus in Arabic. 7 As argued by F. W. Zimmermann, these three sources all derive originally from a lost, perhaps much more extensive, paraphrase of Plotinus. 8 They are united both by writing style and philosophical content. I will call them, collectively, AP; and since I cannot here provide conclusive arguments as to the identity of their author, I will call him the Adaptor.One of the major goals of al-Kindi and his circle seems to have been the synthesis of available Greek texts into a coherent philosophy. Thus al-Kindi himself produced doxographical works (for example, his Discourse on the Soul) and a survey of the Aristotelian corpus. 9 If the Adaptor worked in such a milieu, he may well have been influenced by other philosophical sources in making a paraphrase of Plotinus. Zimmermann has suggested that such an influence is at [End Page 212] work in mimar III, where the Adaptor may have drawn on Aristotle's De Anima in order to "reconcile" Plotinus with an Aristotelian theory of the soul as the entelechia of the body. 10 Here I will examine the relationship of soul and body in AP and expand on Zimmermann's thesis in an effort to show that the Adaptor was, in this respect at least, an Aristotelian interpreter of Plotinus. I will close by examining the relationship between AP and a contemporaneous work, the paraphrase of the De Anima produced in al-Kindi's circle. Mimar III and the Question of entelechiaStudents of Aristotle are familiar with his thesis that soul is the form of the body. In the De Anima Aristotle explains this further by claiming that the soul is the "perfection" or entelechia of... (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: I Aristotle and Early Modern Philosophy II Medieval Thought in Early Modern Scholasticism III The Philosophical Textbook IV Conclusions.

Minimalism and Trivialism are two recent forms of lightweight Platonism in the philosophy of mathematics: Minimalism is the view that mathematical objects arethinin the sense that “very little is required for their existence”, whereas Trivialism is the view that mathematical statements have trivial truth‐conditions, that is, that “nothing is required of the world in order for those conditions to be satisfied”. In order to clarify the relation between the mathematical and the non‐mathematical domain that these views envisage, it has recently (...) been proposed that both Linnebo's notion of sufficiency and Rayo's “just is”‐operator can, or even should, be interpreted in terms of metaphysicalgrounding. This interpretation makes Minimalism and Trivialism akin to Aristotelianism in the philosophy of mathematics, according to which mathematical entities depend for their existence and their properties on non‐mathematical ones. In this paper we raise a general objection to this interpretation. We highlight a tension – a “Big Picture” Problem – between the metaphysical picture underlying both Minimalism and Trivialism, on the one side, and the metaphysics of Platonism and Aristotelianism on the other. We then consider various ways in which Linnebo and Rayo could respond. We finally argue that Minimalism and Trivialism are closer to Aristotelianism than to Platonism; however, even though these positions are not forms of traditional Platonism, they are not standard forms of Aristotelianism either. (shrink)

Because we tend to study fight books in isolation, we often forget how difficult it is to understand the precise place they occupy in the sociocultural and historical fabric of their time, and spill the many clues they inevitably contain on their owner, their local society, their precise purpose. In order to unlock that information, we need to study them in their broader sociocultural and historical context. This requires a background and research skills that are not always easily accessible to (...) everyone. To illustrate the point, in this paper I show in some detail what is required to make sense of the claim that Aristotelian philosophy and science influenced the medieval fight books in relevant ways, and that understanding this influence helps us to better understand the fight books per se. I give an outline of the general historical framework, and apply it to a testcase: Talhoffer’s Thott 290 2° Ms., with some interesting results. My hope is that this framework may be of some use to other researchers in HEMA Studies who want to dig deeper in sources of interest to them. (shrink)

Chakravartty claims that science does not imply any specific metaphysical theory of the world. In this sense, science is consistent with both neo-Aristotelianism and neo-Humeanism. But, along with many others, he thinks that a neo-Aristotelian outlook best suits science. In other words, neo-Aristotelianism is supposed to win on the basis of an inference to the best explanation (IBE). I fail to see how IBE can be used to favour neo-Aristotelianism over neo-Humeanism. In this essay, I aim to (...) do two things. Firstly, I explain why this failure is not idiosyncratic: it should be there even by Chakravartty's lights. Secondly, I raise some critical worries about Chakravartty's semirealism, especially in connection with the concept of a 'concrete structure' and the detection/auxiliary distinction. The essay ends with a dilemma: an exclusive disjunction encapsulated in its title. (shrink)

In Studies on Early Modern Aristotelianism Paul Richard Blum shows that Aristotle’s thought remained the touchstone of modern philosophy; for it was the philosophy taught at universities. The concept of philosophy at Jesuit schools forms the first part of this book. Their impact on the sciences and mathematics in combination with Renaissance ideas of nature is the topic of the second part. The transformation of Aristotelian metaphysics and theology under the influence of the Renaissance is the third area of (...) this book. Surprising continuity from the late Middle Ages into modernity and the radical difference of subject centered modern philosophy from ‘teachable’ school philosophy are innovative in these studies. (shrink)

The atomist philosopher, David Gorlaeus was a student of theology at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands when he died in 1612 at the age of 21. We know little about his short life, but two works by him, Exercitationes Philosophicae and Idea Physicae, survived and were published posthumously in 1620 and 1651 respectively. They contain the intriguing but often underdeveloped views of a budding philosopher whose ideas might have been completely forgotten but for two later perceptions of his (...) philosophical contribution: one negative and one positive.On the negative side, in 1642 the heretical implications of Gorlaeus’ philosophy were linked to René Descartes when Gijsbert Voetius, the Rector.. (shrink)

New Perspectives on Aristotelianism and Its Critics traces Aristotelian influences in modern and pre-modern discourses on knowledge, rights, and the good life. The contributions offer new insights on contemporary discussions on life in its cognitive, political, and ethical dimensions.

'dealing with a special problem and limited in its proof. . .shows how Aristotelian Bacon was in his methodology'; Vickers 1992, 505 dislikes intensely.

The paper examines the influence of aristotelianism on the explanation of action by Thomas Aquinas and Raymund Lullus. The main focus is on the basic elements of this influence, on the originality of the thought of Thomas Aquinas and Raymund Lullus, on their different interpretations of action in comparison with aristotelianism, and on reasons leading to different ways of accepting aristotelianism.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Meaning of “Aristotelianism” in Medieval Moral and Political ThoughtCary J. NedermanI. “Aristotelian” and “Aristotelianism” are words that students of medieval ideas use constantly and almost inescapably. 1 The widespread usage of these terms by scholars in turn reflects the popularity of Aristotle’s thought itself during the Latin Middle Ages: Aristotle provided many of the raw materials with which educated Christians of the Middle Ages built up (...) the edifice of medieval thought. From 1100 it was difficult to receive a good education in Europe without reading at least some Aristotle, along with authors such as Boethius and Cicero who were heavily indebted to the Philosopher’s teachings. After 1200 no university-trained cleric was likely to be wholly unfamiliar with the essential characteristics of the Aristotelian world-view. 2 Thus, Aristotelianism constituted an indispensable common currency of intellectual intercourse during the Middle Ages.Yet at the same time medieval Aristotelianism could never be all-embracing or complete. Given the centrality of Christian religion to medieval Latin thought, it was effectively impossible for Western thinkers to accept basic tenets of Aristotle’s philosophy, such as the nature of the soul, the powers of God, and the source of ultimate human happiness. 3 In view of the [End Page 563] incompatibility of primary Aristotelian and Christian doctrines, no author in medieval Europe could faithfully or safely espouse an unalloyed Aristotelianism.The “Aristotelianism” of the Middle Ages thus possesses something of a paradoxical quality: it is everywhere and yet nowhere. Such uncertainty about the precise meaning and appropriate application of the ascriptions “Aristotelian” and “Aristotelianism” has led some intellectual historians to raise fundamental questions about the validity of these classifications. In a provocative article on the interpretation of “Aristotelianism” in medieval and Renaissance natural philosophy, Edward Grant poses this problem quite pointedly: “What criteria have to be met for one to be considered, say an Aristotelian...? Can such criteria even be formulated? Is there an essence of Aristotelianism... that might provide a means of determining who is, and who is not, a legitimate member of [this group?]” 4 Grant’s own attempts to solve this problem are geared to the particular circumstances of medieval cosmology and physics, fields in which the Aristotelian paradigm entered Latin thought rapidly and reigned unchallenged for three centuries. 5 Consequently, his solutions do not generalize well to other areas of philosophical discourse, such as moral and political philosophy, which experienced rather different processes of Aristotelian transmission and reception.It may therefore be fruitful to examine more carefully the meaning of Aristotelianism as applied specifically to the fields of ethics and politics, and indeed to question whether (or in what ways) the ascription of an Aristotelian outlook to medieval moral and political thought is warranted. In particular I propose to consider the two standard definitions of “Aristotelianism” that have emerged from the literature on the moral and political ideas of the Latin Middle Ages: a strict, essentialist account which holds that Aristotelianism requires endorsement of some salient core of Aristotelian writing or doctrine; and a looser approach which maintains that mere citation of Aristotle’s work or adoption of his language is sufficient to earn the label “Aristotelian” for a medieval text or thinker. While both of these conceptions of Aristotelianism enjoy certain distinct merits, each ultimately proves inadequate to cope with the complexities of the use of Aristotle’s moral and political ideas and texts during the Middle Ages.Does the failure of attempts to define “Aristotelianism” coherently mean that the term itself is a spurious or irrelevant category for the analysis of medieval ethics and political philosophy? I shall ultimately argue that it is possible to identify a coherent meaning of Aristotelianism in the political and moral realms that avoids the shortcomings associated with previous interpretations. Specifically, I claim that the medieval “Aristotelian” tradition is [End Page 564] held together by a particular organization of and orientation towards the kind of knowledge necessary for achieving human good in its moral and political dimensions. Stated succinctly, Aristotelianism posits the practical quality of the study of ethics and politics and hence the value of such knowledge insofar as it guides action. In my view the Aristotelianism... (shrink)