This chapter discusses four packages, including Ludovician, Aristotelian, Fortibracchian, and Quietist. There are two quite coherent packages of answers to the some issues: a neo‐Humeist or Ludovician package, and a neo‐Aristotelian package. Ludovicians put little weight on common sense beliefs, especially when they are embedded in ethical and legal practices, and they do not rely heavily on the "manifest image of the world". Aristotelians rely more heavily on the semantic intuition about what could possibly be the (...) truthmakers for familiar kinds of claims, including those involving tense and modality. This chapter lists the Aristotelian package as including Meinongianism, ontological vagueness, and Tensism on the passage of time. Fortibracchians are very similar in methodology to Ludovicains. In practice, Fortibracchians give more weight to a kind of naive realism with respect to scientific theory than do Ludovicians. (shrink)

Plenitude, roughly, the thesis that for any non-empty region of spacetime there is a material object that is exactly located at that region, is often thought to be part and parcel of the standard Lewisian package in the metaphysics of persistence. While the wedding of plentitude and Lewisian four-dimensionalism is a natural one indeed, there are a hand-full of dissenters who argue against the notion that Lewisian four-dimensionalism has exclusive rights to plentitude. These ‘promiscuous’ three-dimensionalists argue that a temporalized (...) version of plenitude is entirely compatible with a three-dimensional ontology of enduring entities. While few would deny the coherence of such a position, and much work has been done by its proponents to appease critics, there has been surprisingly little by way of exploring the various forms such an ontology might take as well as the potential advantages of one plenitudinous three-dimensional ontology over another. Here I develop a novel form of plenitudinous three-dimensionalism, what John Hawthorne (Metaphysical essays, 2006a, b) has called “Neo-Aristotelian Plenitude,” and argue that if one is inclined to endorse an abundant three-dimensional ontology, one is wise to opt for a plenitude of accidental unities. (shrink)

PACKAGE THIS TITLE WITH OUR 2016 MLA SUPPLEMENT, Documenting Sources in MLA Style (package ISBN-13: 9781319084387). Get the most recent updates on MLA citation in a convenient, 40-page resource based on The MLA Handbook, 8th Edition, with plenty of models. Browse our catalog or contact your representative for a full listing of updated titles and packages, or to request a custom ISBN. The unique collaborative effort of a professor of English and a professor of philosophy, Current Issues and (...) Enduring Questions is an extensive resource for teaching argument, persuasive writing, and rigorous critical thinking. This extraordinarily versatile text and reader continues to address current student interests and trends in argument, research, and writing.Its comprehensive coverage of classic and contemporary approaches to argument includes Aristotelian, Toulmin, and a range of alternative views, including a new chapter on analyzing and writing about arguments in popular culture. Readings on contemporary controversies (including student loan debt, locavorism, and the boundaries of online privacy) and classical philosophical questions (such as How free is the will of the individual?) are sure to spark student interest and lively discussion and writing, and new e-Pages take advantage of what the Web can do by including videos, speeches, film trailers, and other multimodal arguments. (shrink)

PACKAGE THIS TITLE WITH OUR 2016 MLA SUPPLEMENT, Documenting Sources in MLA Style (package ISBN-13: 9781319084387). Get the most recent updates on MLA citation in a convenient, 40-page resource based on The MLA Handbook, 8th Edition, with plenty of models. Browse our catalog or contact your representative for a full listing of updated titles and packages, or to request a custom ISBN. The unique collaborative effort of a professor of English and a professor of philosophy, Current Issues and (...) Enduring Questions is an extensive resource for teaching argument, persuasive writing, and rigorous critical thinking. This extraordinarily versatile text and reader continues to address current student interests and trends in argument, research, and writing.Its comprehensive coverage of classic and contemporary approaches to argument includes Aristotelian, Toulmin, and a range of alternative views, including a new chapter on analyzing and writing about arguments in popular culture. Readings on contemporary controversies (including student loan debt, locavorism, and the boundaries of online privacy) and classical philosophical questions (such as How free is the will of the individual?) are sure to spark student interest and lively discussion and writing, and new e-Pages take advantage of what the Web can do by including videos, speeches, film trailers, and other multimodal arguments. (shrink)

The Atlas of Reality: A Comprehensive Guide to Metaphysics presents an extensive examination of the key topics, concepts, and guiding principles of metaphysics. Represents the most comprehensive guide to metaphysics available today Offers authoritative coverage of the full range of topics that comprise the field of metaphysics in an accessible manner while considering competing views Explores key concepts such as space, time, powers, universals, and composition with clarity and depth Articulates coherent packages of metaphysical theses that include neo-Aristotelian, Quinean, (...) Armstrongian, and neo-Humean Carefully tracks the use of common assumptions and methodological principles in metaphysics. (shrink)

This book is a consideration of the differences between Aristotelian and symbolic logic (and the metaphysical assumptions they come packaged with) and the consequences these have for how we view the world. What Veatch propose is to try to exhibit with respect to several of the key logical tools and devices – propositions, inductive and deductive arguments, scientific and historical explanations, definitions, etc. – how these several instruments are differently conceived, both as to their natures and their functions, in (...) each of these respective logics. (shrink)

In this paper I present a transcendental argument based on the findings of cognitive psychology and neurophysiology which invites two conclusions: First and foremost, that a pre-condition of visual perception itself is precisely what the Aristotelian and other commonsense realists maintain, namely, the independent existence of a featured, or pre-packaged world; second, this finding, combined with other reflections, suggests that, contra McDowell and other neo-Kantians, human beings have access to things as they are in the world via non-projective perception. (...) These two conclusions taken together form the basis of Aristotelian metaphysical realism and a refutation of the neo-Kantian two-factor approach to perception. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:AQUINAS ON VIRTUE AND THE GOODS OF FORTUNE* JOHN BOWLIN University of Tulsa Tulsa, Oklahoma I T IS NOW commonplace to say that Aristotle considers good fortune useful, if not indispensable, for the acquisition and exercise of the virtues, and for the success of virtuous choices.1 Aquinas obviously draws upon Aristotle's treatment of the virtues as he develops his own, and yet he says relatively little about fortune's influence (...) upon the life of virtue.2 This reticence is puzzling, in part because it seems reasonable to expect that Aquinas would address a matter so central to an Aristotelian account of the virtues, but also because fortune's effect upon that account is hardly benign. If the life of virtue requires good fortune, then the voluntary character of virtuous habits and actions is threatened. And for someone with Aquinas's theological commitments the threat comes packaged with additional worries, equally troubling. For it implies that Providence, which governs fortune's ways (STh I, q. 116, a. 1), acts as fortune does, offering virtue and its benefits to some, while unjustly denying them to others. These are difficulties that cannot be escaped by ignoring 'A version of this paper was presented on 7 January 1994 in Chicago at the annual meeting of the Society of Christian Ethics. I would like to thank John Carmody, Victor Preller, Jeffrey Stout, and John Taylor for their comments and criticisms. The usual disclaimers apply. 1 See, e.g., Nancy Sherman, The Fabric ofCharacter: Aristotle's Theory of Virtue (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), chapter 2. 2 Aquinas's interpreters have tended to say even less. For this reason I develop Aquinas's account of the relation between the virtues and the goods of fortune by looking to a number of recent interpretations of Aristotle's account. 537 538 JOHN BOWLIN them, or so it would seem. We must ask, therefore, whether Aquinas fails to see the problems that fortune creates for his treatment of the virtues, or, alternatively, whether his treatment of the virtues offers reasons that warrant his silence.3 Of course, there are multiple questions here insofar as fortune's potential influence upon the life of virtue is as complex as that life. Virtues are acquired, retained, and exercised, and fortune can affect each process in different ways, just as it can affect the success of virtuous choices. Add to this the fact that different virtues are subject to fortune in different ways and to different degrees and suddenly the possibilities for inquiry are vast. Indeed, the thought of undertaking a comprehensive inquiry tempts hubris. Mine will be more modest, asking simply this: what kind and what measure of external goods, those distributed by fortune, are required in order to pursue a life of virtue? l. REJECTED OPTIONS Aquinas lists the following external goods: wealth, power, honor, fame, a good country, a good name, and perhaps a few others (STh I-II, q. 2, a. 1-4; II-II, q. 108, a. 3).4 He considers them instrumental goods, which the virtuous must possess in some measure if they hope to achieve their ends consistently (STh I-II, q. 2, a. 1; II-II, q. 83, a. 6; q. 118, a. 1). He writes, "For imperfect happiness, such as can be had in this life, external goods are necessary, not as belonging to the essence of happiness, but by serving as instruments to happiness, which consists in an operation of virtue" (STh I-II, q. 4, a. 7). Often their usefulness to the virtuous is direct, when, for example, they serve as a necessary instrument of a certain kind of virtuous action. The liberal, for instance, cannot successfully exercise their virtue without at least some wealth (STh II-II, q. 117, a. 3). In other contexts their usefulness is indirect, their aid to the virtuous mediated by some other condition. For instance, 3 Attending to Aquinas's silences is, of course, an effort inspired by Joseph Pieper's classic, The Silence of St. Thomas (New York: Pantheon, 1957). 4 I follow Aquinas and use "goods of fortune" and "external goods" interchangeably (STh I-II, q. 2, a. 4). AQUINAS ON... (shrink)

Sydney Shoemaker leads today’s “neo-Lockean” liberation of persons from the conservative animalist charge of “neo-Aristotelians” such as Eric Olson, according to whom persons are biological entities and who challenge all neo-Lockean views on grounds that abstracting from strictly physical, or bodily, criteria plays fast and loose with our identities. There is a fundamental mistake on both sides: a false dichotomy between bodily continuity versus psychological continuity theories of personal identity. Neo-Lockeans, like everyone else today who relies on Locke’s analysis of (...) personal identity, including Derek Parfit, have either completely distorted or not understood Locke’s actual view. Shoemaker’s defense, which uses a “package deal” definition that relies on internal relations of synchronic and diachronic unity and employs the Ramsey–Lewis account to define personal identity, leaves far less room for psychological continuity views than for my own view, which, independently of its radical implications, is that (a) consciousness makes personal identity, and (b) in consciousness alone personal identity consists—which happens to be also Locke’s actual view. Moreover, the ubiquitous Fregean conception of borders and the so-called “ambiguity of is” collapse in the light of what Hintikka has called the “Frege trichotomy.” The Ramsey–Lewis account, due to the problematic way Shoemaker tries to bind the variables, makes it impossible for the neo-Lockean ala Shoemaker to fulfill the uniqueness clause required by all such Lewis style definitions; such attempts avoid circularity only at the expense of mistaking isomorphism with identity. Contrary to what virtually all philosophers writing on the topic assume, fission does not destroy personal identity. A proper analysis of public versus perspectival identification, derived using actual case studies from neuropsychiatry, provides the scientific, mathematical and logical frameworks for a new theory of self-reference, wherein “consciousness,” “self-consciousness,” and the “I,” can be precisely defined in terms of the subject and the subject-in-itself. (shrink)

ALERT: Before you purchase, check with your instructor or review your course syllabus to ensure that you select the correct ISBN. Several versions of Pearson's MyLab & Mastering products exist for each title, including customized versions for individual schools, and registrations are not transferable. In addition, you may need a CourseID, provided by your instructor, to register for and use Pearson's MyLab & Mastering products. Packages Access codes for Pearson's MyLab & Mastering products may not be included when purchasing or (...) renting from companies other than Pearson; check with the seller before completing your purchase. Used or rental books If you rent or purchase a used book with an access code, the access code may have been redeemed previously and you may have to purchase a new access code. Access codes Access codes that are purchased from sellers other than Pearson carry a higher risk of being either the wrong ISBN or a previously redeemed code. Check with the seller prior to purchase. -- Students learn how traditional ethical theories can be applied to practical problems . Introducing Ethics is a brief text that encourages students to determine how the common wisdom of traditional ethical theories can be applied to practical problems such as the distribution of income and wealth, torture, terrorism, and gay and lesbian rights. The text begins by challenging students to think about whether or not ethics is useful for making choices. It poses three questions: 1) Is morality determined by religion rather than reason? 2) Is everything relative? 3) Is it better to be an egoist? Then, after laying out Utilitarian ethics, Kantian ethics, and Aristotelian ethics, the author poses an additional three challenges focused on the traditional conceptions of ethics: the environmental challenge, the feminist challenge, and the multicultural challenge. Learning Goals Upon completing this book readers will be able to: Answer the question: Do I make ethical or moral choices well? Determine their own responses to ethical challenges Note: MySearchLab does not come automatically packaged with this text. To purchase MySearchLab, please visit: www.mysearchlab.com or you can purchase a ValuePack of the text + MySearchLab (at no additional cost): ValuePack ISBN-10: 0205903843 / ValuePack ISBN-13: 9780205903849. (shrink)

Philosophical zombies are exactly as physicalists suppose we are, right down to the tiniest details, but they have no conscious experiences. Are such things even logically possible? My aim is to contribute to showing not only that the answer is 'No', but why. My strategy has two prongs: a fairly brisk argument which demolishes the zombie idea; followed by an attempt to throw light on how something can qualify as a conscious perceiver. The argument to show that zombies are impossible (...) exploits the point that in order to be able to detect our own 'qualia' we should have to be somehow sensitive to them; which the zombie idea rules out. The attempt to make clear why my zombie twin must be conscious exploits the idea that we have a reasonably clear grasp of a 'Basic Package' of psychological concepts. (shrink)

Ernst Bloch gives a striking account of materialism that traces emancipatory elements of modern thought to medieval Islamic philosophers' encounter with Aristotle. He argues that the great medieval Islamic philosopher Avicenna (Ibn Sina) planted the seeds of a radical materialism still relevant for critical theory today.

In Measuring the Immeasurable Mind: Where Contemporary Neuroscience Meets the Aristotelian Tradition, Matthew Owen argues that despite its nonphysical character, it is possible to empirically detect and measure consciousness. -/- Toward the end of the previous century, the neuroscience of consciousness set its roots and sprouted within a materialist milieu that reduced the mind to matter. Several decades later, dualism is being dusted off and reconsidered. Although some may see this revival as a threat to consciousness science aimed at (...) measuring the conscious mind, Owen argues that measuring consciousness, along with the medical benefits of such measurements, is not ruled out by consciousness being nonphysical. Owen proposes the Mind-Body Powers model of neural correlates of consciousness, which is informed by Aristotelian causation and a substance dualist view of human nature inspired by Thomas Aquinas, who often followed Aristotle. In addition to explaining why there are neural correlates of consciousness, the model provides a philosophical foundation for empirically discerning and quantifying consciousness. En route to presenting and applying the Mind-Body Powers model to neurobiology, Owen rebuts longstanding objections to dualism related to the mind-body problem. With scholarly precision and readable clarity, Owen applies an oft forgotten yet richly developed historical vantage point to contemporary cognitive neuroscience. (shrink)

Scholars discussing Aquinas’s ethics typically understand it as largely Aristotelian, though with some differences accounted for by the differences in world­view between Aristotle and Aquinas. In this paper, I argue against this view. I show that although Aquinas recognizes the Aristotelian virtues, he thinks they are not real virtues. Instead, for Aquinas, the passions—or the suitably formulated intellectual and volitional analogues to the passions—are not only the foundation of any real ethical life but also the flowering of what (...) is best in it. (shrink)

Confucianism is potentially relevant to business ethics and business practice in many ways. Although some scholars have seen Confucian thought as applicable to corporate social responsibility :433–451, 2009) and to corporate governance :30–43, 2013), only a few business ethicists :415–431, 2001b; Journal of Business Ethics 116:703–715, 2013; Romar in Journal of Business Ethics 38:119–131, 2002; Lam in The Analects, Penguin Classics, London, 2003; Chan in Journal of Business Ethics 77:347–360, 2008; Woods and Lamond in Journal of Business Ethics 102:669–683, 2011) (...) have taken seriously the possibility that Confucius may have important insights to offer regarding virtue ethics, which has now become the most popular normative theory as evidenced by the number of recent articles published in business ethics journals :287–318, 2017). This paper aims to help rectify this oversight. The paper focuses on several distinctive aspects of Confucian ethics, discussing both how Confucius’ approach differs from Aristotelian virtue ethics in significant ways and how these key differences suggest numerous directions for future research. (shrink)

This is a translation of Nicolai Hartmann’s article “Der Megarische und der Aristotelische Möglichkeitsbegriff: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des ontologischen Modalitätsproblems,” first published in 1937. In this article, Hartmann defends an interpretation of the Megarian conception of possibility, which found its clearest form in Diodorus Cronus’ expression of it and according to which “only what is actual is possible” or “something is possible only if it is actual.” Hartmann defends this interpretation against the then dominant Aristotelian conception of possibility, (...) based on the opposition between dynamis and energeia, and according to which there is always an open multiplicity of simultaneous “possibilities,” the outcome of which remains undetermined. Since, according to Hartmann, reality suffers no indetermination, the Megarian conception of possibility is an account of real possibility, whereas the Aristotelian one is merely an account of epistemic possibility. (shrink)

This paper examines the concept of ‘areti’ as encountered in the Aristotelian ethical system in order to establish its relationship to the modern concept of virtue as well as to that of moral truth, that is, to identify its truth-value. I intend to show that the Aristotelian ‘areti’ as a developed state of character and as an advanced stage of ethical understanding entails moral truth. ‘Areti’ as a good-in-itself possesses an intrinsic value which reflects moral truth, and as (...) a means for the accomplishment of ‘eudaimonia’ (ultimate happiness) it possesses an instrumental value. I also wish to argue that this position calls for a realist as well as an objectivist (or nonrelativist) approach in Aristotle. To that effect, I examine the elements of ‘areti’ that relate it to truth, and then I use reference to some of theAristotelian virtues, such as ‘andreia’ (courage), ‘philia’ (friendship), ‘dikaiosyne’ (justice), and ‘megalopsychia’ (magnanimity), in order to examine the way moral truth functions. This examination will also try to show that Aristotle’s aretaic approach does not suffer from the ills of virtue ethics theories. (shrink)

Contemplation and politics in the life of the aristotelian philosopher.

This paper has two aims: First, to provide an elucidation of the kind of meta-ethical programme at work in Mary Midgley's (1919-2018) Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature (published in 1978). Second, to make the case for Midgley's placement within the philosophical and philosophical-historical canon, specifically, as an important figure within the meta-ethical movement of ‘Neo-Aristotelian naturalism'. On historical and systematic grounds, I argue that Midgley should be classified as a neo-Aristotelian ethical naturalist notwithstanding the distinctive (...) features of Midgley’s specific brand of neo-Aristotelianism. In doing so, I suggest a more generally applicable family resemblance approach to the history of philosophy in order to classify and re-introduce into the canon figures in the history of philosophy that are in danger of falling into oblivion. (shrink)

Vardoulakis argues that the concept of equality is determined by the distinction between three different types of equality in Aristotle. He then shows how Spinoza overcomes the Aristotelian conception by determining equality through a notion of differential power.

This book is a meticulous study of Aristotle's phronesis and its applications to the fields of personal development or character formation and of ethical ...

This article discusses some essential differences between the Cartesian and neo-Aristotelian conceptions of child development. It argues that we should prefer the neo-Aristotelian conception since it is capable of resolving the problems the Cartesian conception is confronted by. This is illustrated by discussing the neo-Aristotelian alternative to the Cartesian explanation of the development of volitional powers, and the neo-Aristotelian alternative to the Cartesian simulation theory and theory–theory account of the development of social cognition. The neo-Aristotelian (...) conception is further elaborated by discussing how it differs from both behaviorism and cognitive neuroscience. (shrink)

Edwin Hartman explores Aristotle's metaphysical assumptions as they illuminate his thought and some issues of current philosophical significance. The author's analysis of the theory of the soul treats such topics of lively debate as ontological primacy, spatio-temporal continuity, personal identity, and the relation between mind and body. Aristotle presents a world populated primarily by individual material objects rather than by their parts or by universals. The author notes that defense of this view requires Aristotle to create the notion of form (...) or essence. A material object, the Philosopher holds, is identical with its particular essence, and is not a combination of form and matter. Most important, a person is a substance and his essence is his soul. Personal identify is therefore bodily identity, and survival consists in bodily continuity. The relation between a state of perceiving and a state of the body is a special case of the weak identity between form and matter. Originally published in 1978. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

© The Author 2018. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Logical geometry provides a broad framework for systematically studying the logical properties of Aristotelian diagrams. The main aim of this paper is to present and illustrate the foundations of a computational approach to logical geometry. In particular, after briefly discussing some key notions from logical geometry, I describe a logical problem concerning Aristotelian diagrams that is of considerable theoretical importance, viz. the task of finding the maximal (...) Boolean complexity of a given family of Aristotelian diagrams, and I then present and discuss a simple algorithm for automatically solving this task. This algorithm is naturally implemented within the paradigm of logic programming. In order to illustrate the theoretical fruitfulness of this algorithm, I also show how it sheds new light on several well-known families of Aristotelian diagrams. (shrink)

_Concept Formation_ is the final part of the trilogy _Forms of Representation in the Aristotelian Tradition_. It investigates some of the most perplexing and provocative discussions on conceptual thinking in the Greek, Latin, and Arabic reception of Aristotle’s psychology.

This book shows otherwise. John Martin rehabilitates Neoplatonism, founded by Plotinus and brought into Christianity by St. Augustine.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Foucault’s Renaissance Episteme Reassessed: An Aristotelian CounterblastIan MacleanThere seem to me to be two good reasons for looking at Foucault’s Renaissance episteme again, even though specialists of the Renaissance have given it short shrift and Foucault himself does not seem to have set great store by it in his later writings. 1 The first is that in general books on Foucault accounts of it are still given in (...) a neutral or even approving way, as though neither the concept of episteme (which suggests both that mind-sets or paradigms or epistemes are all-constraining) nor the account of the Renaissance episteme in particular (which is given a predominantly Platonic and hermetic character) require modification, if not refutation. 2 I shall suggest that although in some sense we are all prisoners of our mind-sets, there are ways in which we can escape from this prison 3 ; and with respect to the Renaissance in particular, I shall claim that Aristotelianism, not Platonism, is the appropriate context in which to see the dominant universe of discourse of the day and that this philosophy can be shown to possess the resources for escaping its limitations. To do this I shall [End Page 149] give a brief resume of Foucault’s episteme in general and the Renaissance episteme in particular. Then I shall show first, that the Platonist features which he cites as typical are actively refuted at that time and cannot be described as dominant without severe qualification; second, that the versions of Aris-totelianism widely taught in universities and schools give quite different accounts of these features; and third, that this form of thinking can be shown to have the freedom of self-critique in the very areas in which Foucault chooses to see Renaissance philosophy as both constraining and constrained.In 1969 Foucault produced his “theoretical work” L’Archéologie du savoir as the methodological systematization of his earlier historical writings, L’Histoire de la folie à l’âge classique (l961), La Naissance de la clinique (l963), and Les Mots et les choses (1966). In this work man is described as a modern self-invention, fashioned from a particular configuration of knowledge and destined soon to disappear. Foucault’s history of man is a story about the way he constituted himself as a subject and then made his body, his behavior, his reason, and his consciousness the object of his study and a field to be controlled, regulated, trained, and coerced. In this analysis man’s “rationality” becomes not a faculty but an authoritarian straitjacket. What Foucault sets out to investigate is a very fundamental form of ontology but not one associated with profound knowledge; it is a superficial and finite, if largely invisible, field, which is discontinuous, not defined by the agenda of the modern state of any associated discipline, and peopled by “utterances” (énoncés) which are only graspable in their differences and their dispersion. If coagulations of these “utterances” (formations discursives) occur at all, they appear only in the form of consistent relations: the objects to which they “refer” are no more than objectifications whose scientific status cannot be established and whose meaning cannot be recovered by semantic or rhetorical analysis. In calling his previous book Les Mots et les choses, he was being explicitly ironic, for neither the words nor the things of the title have any substance to them: they are not presences but absences. The description made by the historian is remote from his object, indirect, incomplete; it describes a “preconceptual field” in which the “preconcepts” are no more than organizing operators or functions revealing relationships of dependence, processes of validation, contingent theories of truth. The “utterances” which these “preconcepts” inform come together in “discourses” which are neither systems nor mere aggregations of knowledge; archaeological history as practiced by Foucault uncovers not a “mentality” but an “episteme,” which he defines as follows:By episteme we mean... the total set of relations that unite, at a given period, the discursive practices that give rise to epistemological figures, sciences, possibly formalized systems.... The episteme is not a form of knowledge or type of rationality which, crossing the boundaries [End Page 150] of the most... (shrink)

The Scientific Revolution was far from the anti-Aristotelian movement traditionally pictured. Its applied mathematics pursued by new means the Aristotelian ideal of science as knowledge by insight into necessary causes. Newton’s derivation of Kepler’s elliptical planetary orbits from the inverse square law of gravity is a central example.

Biosemiotics—a discipline in the process of becoming established as a new research enterprise—faces a double task. On the one hand it must carry out the theoretical and experimental investigation of an enormous range of semiotic phenomena relating organisms to their internal components and to other organisms (e.g., signal transduction, replication, codes, etc.). On the other hand, it must achieve a philosophical re-conceptualization and generalization of theoretical biology in light of the essential role played by semiotic notions in biological explanation and (...) modeling. This paper attempts to contribute to the second task by tracing some aspects of the historical evolution of explanatory models in biology. In so doing, a parallel can be drawn between the present status of biosemiotics and that of physics during the early decades of the last century. By following the career of the concept instrument (organon) in Aristotelian science, we revisit historical stages of the antithetical (but often complementary) roles of mechanical and teleological forms of explanation. The impact of the introduction of the organic codes in biology is seen to be somewhat analogous to that of the introduction of the quantum of action in physics. Faced with intractable empirical facts, physicists combined experimental results and bold philosophical speculation to create quantum physics—a wider, deeper framework that accommodates the new facts through a wholesale reformulation of the classical ideas. Essential to this development was the articulation of the epistemic functions of instruments, which was absent from classical physics. Similarly, the consideration of the role of instruments in biology may lead to a synthesis of Aristotelian and Kantian intuitions within a wider framework capable of joining now separate perspectives, such as Jablonka’s four-fold view of inheritance information, Barbieri’s theory of artifactual copymakers and codemakers, and recently developed models of causation based on the idea of manipulative interventions. (shrink)